


Some trust in love, and some trust in hatred

by dunklenacht310



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bottom Zayn, Canon-Typical Violence, Gay Sex, Graphic descriptions of corpses, Harry is a badass but he's also a big softie, M/M, The Walking Dead References, Top Harry, but not too many it's just because it's fun, they're all kinda badass but deep down they're saps as usual, zombie apocalypse AU, zombies are disgusting I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-01 04:25:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18328589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dunklenacht310/pseuds/dunklenacht310
Summary: Harry was extremely fit, and he would probably be fitter if he smiled every once in a while. Zayn knew it was petty to think about fit blokes in the middle of an apocalypse, but he’d learned to enjoy petty things again, like books, leather jackets, and cigarettes.God, Zayn had almost kissed Jason on the mouth when he’d come back from one of their supply raids and had thrown a packet of tobacco at him. But Zayn hadn’t kissed him, because Jason was fifty years old. Not at all because Zayn had his growing crush on Harry Styles to nurse.-A zombie apocalypse turned the world upside down. Zayn has been roaming the cities, alone and with no shelter, until he stumbles upon a barricaded town. He soon discovers that the leader, a certain Harry Styles, really doesn't trust strangers. That, of course, doesn't mean Zayn can avoid crushing on him.





	1. Prologue - The hole in the ground

**Author's Note:**

> Usual disclaimer: I don't know or own any of the characters present in this work. I only own the plot and the original characters.
> 
> The title of this fic is taken from _Some Trust_ by The Fray.

 

 

Zayn came out of the forest with his breath ragged in uneven gasps and his whole body drenched in blood and guts.

The corpses seemed to have stopped following him, probably lost his scent among the trees and the dirt. Zayn looked around just to be sure, but there were no tell-tale signs. No disgusting gurgling noises, no sounds of steps over dried leaves. Zayn decided to abandon the forest, and walk along the small gravel road to try and find some shelter, at least for the night.

What he saw made him question his own mental stability.

There was a huge gate, closing some kind of really tall metal fence, and a big sign reading ‘The Hole In The Ground’ towered over the entrance. It was a town. Or some sort of _place_ anyway.

He briefly thought of Liam and Louis, and how they always joked there had to be some _The Walking Dead_ kinda shit around, people rebuilding cities and whatnot. He’d always dismissed their jokes, and yet there he was, looking at a place that surely had people and _safety_ inside of it, judging by how they even had armed guards running along the top of the fence on what looked like a boardwalk.

Zayn needed to get in. He needed to be finally safe, after that whole year alone, running, without any kind of permanent shelter. After his whole group had been slaughtered by _other people_ , not even corpses. Just real people with real evil intentions, a group of ex-cons coming out of a bunker in what had once been south Leeds, killing them all to rob them of their scarce supplies.

Zayn had watched all his friends be killed mercilessly, taken by surprise because they were too naïve to think they would need to defend themselves against _fellow humans_. He’d watched Liam and Louis get ripped away from his sides, and only made it out alive because Louis had pushed him under a fence and away from the mayhem, screaming at him to leave and live.

Zayn had left and lived, but only barely. Because his mind had never left Louis and Liam being slaughtered with all the others. And he lived, yes, but would stop very soon, because he had no food, no water, no _energy_ , not for much longer.

So Zayn decided to risk it. He slowly approached the guarded gate, his arms raised high above his head.

“Halt!” one of the sentinels shouted “Who are you?”

“My name is Zayn!” he screamed “I need help. I need shelter”

Zayn saw the guard raise a transmitter and speak quietly into it. He listened to someone replying, and then nodded at the other guard. “Come in!” they shouted.

Zayn quickly did.

The guards didn’t speak to him when he entered the place and they closed the gates again, but Zayn didn’t mind, because he was too busy looking at all _that_.

It wasn’t a town, wasn’t even remotely big enough, but it was _something_. There were small, gravel pathways running around grids of tiny brick houses with _lights, real lights_ shining from inside the windows. It was dark, but the small streets were illuminated by streetlights and torches as well. Zayn noticed a fairly large field where vegetables were clearly growing, and a smith’s workstation, before the two guards grabbed him by the arm and started pushing him towards the remnants of what looked like a small town hall.

“What is this place?” Zayn hissed, shocked at such a level of _civilization_ , because that was what all that was.

One of the two guards chuckled. “I wouldn’t get comfortable yet if I were you” he said.

Zayn deemed it best not to reply, so he let them guide him inside the town hall.

It was just a big room with maps and charts and a clusterfuck of more objects all around. There was a desk by the farthest wall, and three people sitting on it, their legs dangling.

When they were close enough, Zayn felt the air punch out of his lungs all at once.

Liam and Louis were there, clearly just as shocked as Zayn, staring at him like they couldn’t believe he was alive. And frankly, Zayn started to think he was dreaming, because more than a year had passed, and he’d been _sure, so sure_ that Liam and Louis were dead.

“Lou? Leeyum?” Zayn whimpered, trying to get closer to them, but the guards held him back.

Only then Zayn looked at the third man. He was sat on the desk between Liam and Louis, a halo of curls around his face and eyes so clear they looked like ice. He was resting his elbows on his own knees, fingers intertwined, looking at Zayn with a blank expression.

“Zayn?” Liam said, his voice shaking.

Zayn nodded.

“He’s our friend!” Louis shouted to the guards “Andrew, Greg, let him fucking go, okay? He’s our friend”

The guards didn’t obey, and Louis turned to the man with the curls with a pale face. “Harry? He’s our friend. Let him go” he said again.

The man, Harry, hummed. “Not so fast, I’m afraid” he said coldly.


	2. Ride with me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you know what happened to him?” Zayn asked “Like, before?”  
> Liam and Louis perked up at that, because they were also curious, but Maria sighed. “Don’t go there, Zayn, please. Like, I love you a lot, but it’s not my story to tell”  
> “I’m just trying to understand him”  
> Maria shrugged. “You can try to _ask_ him, if you want to understand him"  
> Zayn sighed. Maybe she was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: As the tags already say, there will be graphic descriptions of corpses, because it's a zombie AU, so I really _have_ to describe the zombies and the blood every now and then. They're disgusting, but I consider them part of my original characters too, so I like them anyway. They only need someone to love them!

 

 

 

“Leave us”

The man called Harry spoke with a low drawl, and the two guards immediately let Zayn go, retreating and closing the door of the ex-town hall behind them.

“Zayn” Louis sighed, and was running towards Zayn in less than a moment, Liam in tow.

Zayn didn’t even react when they both hugged him, too shocked to see them alive and well, when he’d thought for months, almost a year, that they were dead.

“Zayn, are you okay?” Liam asked him, grabbing his shoulders to look at him in the face.

Zayn nodded. “You… you’re alive. I thought…”

“We too” Louis nodded “We didn’t think you made it” he laughed “But you’re here now, we’re together again, everything’s gonna be okay, Zed, we…”

“I said” Zayn heard the rough voice of the man named Harry again “Not so fast”

“Haz” Louis said, turning to look at him “He’s our friend Zayn. He’s good, I promise”

Harry slowly stood up from the table. He was tall and lean, wearing simple jeans and a white t-shirt, but his casual appearance did nothing to mask the hard and suspicious look he was sending Zayn’s way with a flash of his green eyes.

Harry shook his head and got closer. “He’s a stranger. You know I don’t trust outsiders”

“He’s not an outsider _to us_ , Harry” Liam answered “We’ve known him for a long time. Before all this. Since we were children. We told you a shitton of things about him”

Harry arched his eyebrows. “I don’t take strangers in. Not anymore”

“You took us in” Louis retorted.

“It’s different. You two saved my life. I owed you” Harry said coldly.

“Well, Zayn saved ours. Multiple times. We’d have died on day one of this whole shitshow if it wasn’t for him” Louis answered “That has to count for something”

Zayn watched and listened to them bicker for a moment, without speaking, because he was honestly a bit afraid of Harry. He still hadn’t really processed the fact that his two best friends were there, alive, and the thought that Harry would just kick him out and separate them again was too frightening to contemplate.

“He has his own tongue, doesn’t he?” Harry asked at last.

Louis and Liam didn’t speak. They looked at Zayn, and Zayn took a deep breath, raising his eyes to look at Harry. “I do. My name’s Zayn. I’m friends with these two. We got separated a year ago. I thought they were dead” he said.

Harry nodded. “How many zombies have you killed?”

Zayn stuttered. “H-How many? I… I didn’t count them or anything. My fair share”

Harry nodded again. “Have you killed _people_?”

“No” Zayn answered sincerely “I never did”

Harry stared up-and-down at Zayn for a moment, and then averted his eyes to look at Liam and Louis. “You know the rules. Do you _vouch_ for him?”

“Yes” Liam and Louis both said instantly.

“Think it over” Harry warned “You know what happens when you vouch for someone and they’re no good”

“We vouch for him” Louis said sternly.

“Wait, what happens?” Zayn asked, fear eating at his guts.

“If they vouch for you” Harry said slowly “And you turn out to be bad for this community, when I kick you out, they join you”

 _I’m good. I can be good. Don’t kick me out._ “I’m good” Zayn said “I promise. I can earn my keep or whatever. I didn’t even know places like this existed. Let us stay, please. Let _me_ stay”

Harry nodded. “You can stay. For now. You can take him in at your place, I don’t have space for another person on such a short notice unless you wanna let him sleep in the jail” he told Louis and Liam “We’ll see how this goes”

He walked past them and out of the church without adding anything more.

As soon as they were alone, Louis and Liam laughed and hugged Zayn again. Zayn let out a shaky laugh himself, and hugged them back, closing his eyes when he felt the familiar press of their bodies together.

“Where the fuck were you?” Louis asked, without letting him go.

“Trying not to be eaten alive” Zayn answered “What… what _is_ this place? And what’s with that guy?”

Liam laughed. “Harry is… a bit wary of strangers. But he’s good, we promise. He gave us the third grade and a hard time in the beginning as well. He’ll warm up to you, he’s great, I swear”

Louis nodded. “Come on, Zed. How do you fancy a cuppa and a real bed?”

Zayn laughed again, harder.

 

*

 

Zayn, Louis and Liam spent the night interrogating each other on what the fuck had been going on in the past year.

It turned out that Liam and Louis managed to escape the slaughter in south Leeds shortly after Zayn, but when they’d looked for him, they’d found his jacket covered in blood in the woods, and they’d given up on him, thinking he was dead.

“We spent months dreading looking at the corpses in the face” Liam told him grimly “We were scared one of them was gonna be you eventually”

Zayn shook his head. “I lost my jacket while running from the corpses. I hid. For a long time, until I finally managed to get out of that zone. And then I kept running. I’m sorry I didn’t come back looking for you. I also gave up. I’m sorry”

“Don’t be, Zayn” Louis smiled “It’s all good now. We found this place. Well, we found Harry. The fucker lost his weapon, was surrounded by corpses. We saved him, and he took us in. Six months ago”

“Does he really call the corpses ‘zombies’?” Zayn asked, like an afterthought.

Liam laughed. “Yeah. He always says he doesn’t wanna indulge in all the _Walking Dead_ shit and give ‘em fake names. Might as well call them what they are, he says”

Zayn snorted and didn’t reply.

“He’s cool” Louis said “He could have left us to ourselves. But he took us in. And now he took _you_ in”

“For now” Zayn muttered “He’s fucking scary. What happened to him?”

Liam shrugged. “We don’t really know. And we don’t ask either, to be honest. We only know that he was probably a big ball of sunshine before something went very wrong with him. He’s got pics in his office, and he’s smiling so wide in all of ‘em” he said pensively.

“Office?” Zayn frowned.

“The old town hall” Louis said “This is kind of like, a real city, Zayn. Harry’s the boss, he has a council, people he trusts. He even said he can’t put me and Liam in the council yet ‘cause there’s a rule that members of the council must be people who’ve stayed here for more than a year. Called us in his office in the middle of the night just to tell us and make sure we know he trusts us anyway, bless him” he chuckled “And he might be a bit scary and a bit weird, but he takes care of everything. We’re safe here”

“Now let’s get you to your new bed, yeah?” Liam smiled “And tomorrow we can show you around and…”

A knock on the door interrupted him, and Zayn flinched a little bit.

“It’s okay, Zed” Louis said, patting him on the shoulder and going to answer.

Zayn could see it was Harry, but he couldn’t hear what he told Louis. Before Zayn could even try to read their lips, Harry was already gone.

Louis came back to them with a grin, holding a leather jacket in his hands. “Harry said he remembered what we told him about you and your bloody leather jacket. He had one in his closet but it’s too tight on his shoulders. Here” he threw the jacket at Zayn, and Zayn felt the expensive leather under his fingertips. He tried it on, and it fit him perfectly.

“I’d say it’s a nice peace offering” Liam commented with a chuckle.

Louis laughed. “Hold your horses, it’s still Harry fucking Styles. But it’s a start, I guess” he retorted “Now, sleep. We can get Harry to properly like you starting tomorrow”

 

\---

 

**Three weeks later**

Harry still hated his guts or something, Zayn thought as he made his way to the vegetables field to help the others plant the new seeds. Harry was by the smith’s booth, talking to Edward who was showing him some new shovels he’d built, but when Zayn nodded his greeting with a smile, Edward was the only one smiling back.

It was a shame, Zayn reckoned, because Harry was extremely fit, and he would probably be fitter if he smiled every once in a while. Zayn knew it was petty to think about fit blokes in the middle of an apocalypse, but since he’d started living at The Hole In The Ground, he’d learned to enjoy petty things again, like books, leather jackets, and cigarettes.

 _God_ , Zayn had almost kissed Jason on the mouth when he’d come back from one of their supply raids and had thrown a packet of tobacco, with filters and rolling paper, right in Zayn’s face. But Zayn hadn’t kissed him, because Jason was fifty years old. Not at all because Zayn had his growing crush on Harry Styles to nurse.

“I think he likes you” Maria offered, dragging the consonants in her slightly foreign accent, while they were both bent on the soil to shove the seeds in the holes someone else had already made for them.

Zayn snorted. “Sure”

“He stares at you a lot” the girl, a scrawny eighteen-year-old thing with dark skin and crazy curls, grinned.

Zayn dared raise his head to peek at Harry, but Harry was quick to turn his eyes away from him. Yeah, he’d been looking, but it wasn’t because of what Maria thought. “He stares at me ‘cause he’s waiting for me to do something wrong so he can kick me out”

“Nah” Maria laughed “It’s been three weeks. And honestly, Harry pretends like he’s this badass, cruel leader, but deep down he’s a fucking sap. He never kicks anyone out”

Zayn arched an eyebrow. “How many people have come here in the past months, except for me, Louis and Liam?”

“Um, no one?”

“Exactly. So, ‘never kicks anyone out’ is an euphemism. It’s just that he never had new people to kick out”

“But the _few_ that came stayed!” Maria said cheerfully “I think you two should shag. Might solve the tension”

“Maria!” Zayn almost squealed “I don’t think you should even _know_ that word”

“Zayn? I’m eighteen, not three?”

“Same difference” Zayn muttered, carefully covering his seeds with more soil.

“I think she’s right” an Irish accent and a barking laugh announced that Niall was also on vegetables duty that morning.

“Why doesn’t _anyone_ mind their business here?” Zayn rolled his eyes at the peroxide blonde lad.

Niall was Harry’s best friend, so maybe his opinion had a bit more weight than Maria’s in Zayn’s mind, but Zayn carefully pushed away every thought of Harry and him shagging, because Harry was so hell-bent on hating Zayn that he would probably kick him out just for sporting a boner in the field.

“Because we care about your sexual lives and want to resurrect them both so we can finally stop seeing you two eye-fuck each other and pretend you don’t like each other” Niall said bluntly.

“I don’t eye-fuck anyone” Zayn retorted.

“Sure” Maria giggled “Not anyone, that’s true. Only Harry Styles”

“Harry Styles what?” Harry’s low drawl announced his presence.

Zayn looked at him, but he was just grinning at Maria with his hands on his hips, concentrating on her like Zayn wasn’t right next to the girl.

“I was saying that you’re extremely fit with that bun o’ yours” Maria said with a bright smile, shielding her face from the sun with a hand.

Harry rolled his eyes.

“And Zayn was agreeing” Niall added.

Harry’s face was blank again as he finally acknowledged Zayn’s presence.

“I wasn’t!” Zayn exclaimed “I mean. Not that I don’t think you’re fit. And not that I think that you are. I just wasn’t talking. And I…”

“This is the point where you stop speaking, Zayn” Maria rolled her eyes.

Harry didn’t reply. He just ignored the whole deal and looked at Niall. “Ni, I came to tell you you’re needed for a raid right now. Anthony's leg is still not completely healed and the team is missing a man”

“But Haz, I have to go back to the lab to make the bullets, you know the others still haven’t properly learned” Niall said, frowning.

“The bullets will have to wait. We’re low on supplies. The raid’s more important”

“Haz” Niall said, scowling “The bullets are important too. Our guards are fucking standing at their posts with empty guns. We need…”

“I can go” Zayn finally overcame his doubts and spoke.

Harry’s shoulders froze, and he slowly looked down at Zayn, who was still crouched on the soil, but looking back at Harry nonetheless. “Excuse me?”

“I can go” Zayn said more firmly “I did my fair share of raids when I was by myself. I can kill corpses. And Louis and Liam are going too. Let me come”

Harry, for the first time since Zayn had reached Hole In The Ground, seemed at a loss of words. “I don’t…”

“Please?” Zayn said in his best sultry tone, standing up to be at eye-level with him “You’re going as well, right? You can still keep an eye on me if that’s what you’re worried about. And I can finally earn my keep with more than planting tomatoes”

“Vegetables are important or we’d starve” Harry said sternly, tilting up his chin with a stubborn look on his face.

“I know” Zayn said more gently “I know, but I’m not a farmer. Kids had to fucking teach me how to hold a shovel. The only thing I really know how to do is killing corpses. Let me come. Let me be useful”

Harry studied him for a moment, and then nodded. “You ride with me” he just said, and gestured for him to follow.

“Did he _really_ say _that_?” Niall hissed to Maria.

“Yep” Maria said with a chuckle “He could have said ‘follow me’ or ‘you stay where I can see you’, but no, he had to use the word ‘ride’, didn’t he?”

“Shut up” Zayn muttered to both of them, feeling his cheeks go on fire, and followed Harry, who was already some steps ahead of him.

None of them spoke as Harry went to circle the town hall, and when they both reached the back of the building, Zayn’s stomach flipped in anticipation.

When Harry had said ‘ride’, he hadn’t meant a horse.

He had a _motorcycle_. A huge bike, red and black, with a perfect leather seat and shiny handles.

“You have _a bike_?” Zayn hissed.

Harry arched his eyebrows. “Yes? Have any problems with my bike?”

“No!” Zayn exclaimed “Jesus, she’s a beauty”

Harry hummed, studying Zayn some more, but Zayn didn’t really care, because he was too busy studying the bike. Except no, that was a lie, because as Zayn walked around the vehicle he could feel Harry’s green eyes burning a hole in the nape of his neck, and he would be a filthy liar if he said he wasn’t enjoying it.

“Don’t even think to ask me to let you drive her” Harry said when Zayn turned to face him again.

“Wouldn’t dream of it” Zayn said, playfully raising his hands “I hope you know how to do her justice, though”

“You’re a little shit, ain’t you” Harry muttered, straddling the seat, but Zayn could have sworn his tone was playful as well.

He quickly joined Harry and straddled the seat as well, holding tight onto the sides of the seat.

“You might want to hold onto something a little more stable” Harry said without turning to look at him “I run”

Zayn had barely the time to process the sentence and tentatively grab Harry’s t-shirt on his back before Harry revved up twice and fucking _flew_ out of the backyard.

Zayn laughed. He didn’t feel guilty in the slightest when he used the high speed as an excuse to wrap his arms around Harry’s waist, and he saw two shocked Louis and Liam packed with other people in the back of a truck as he and Harry passed them by.

Zayn laughed some more and flipped his friends off while Harry drove out of the gates.

“That wasn’t very polite” Harry commented.

“They know it’s a sign of affection” Zayn answered.

“I guess they do” Harry was barely audible over the engine, but when they reached the end of the gravel road leaving the Hole In The Ground, he slowed down considerably and proceeded more carefully, and silently.

“Why did you stop?” Zayn asked, his heart still threatening to come out of his chest.

Harry chuckled. “’Cause we need them with the truck and if we lose them we’re not gonna be able to carry shit with my bike” he said “And ‘cause if the zombies hear the noise we’ll have a horde on us before we can say _hot damn_ ”

The words made Zayn absurdly think of Bruno Mars, and as they proceeded along the road, he found himself humming _Uptown Funk_ while his hands were still linked around Harry’s waist.

He almost popped a blood vessel when Harry started to quietly hum the song with him.

“ _I’m too hot_ ” Zayn tried.

“ _Hot damn_ ” Harry replied.

Zayn didn’t laugh, because it was surreal that Harry, Harry fucking Styles, was driving a bike and singing Bruno Mars, so naturally Zayn wanted him to never stop. “ _Say my name you know who I am_ ” he sung.

Harry chuckled. “ _I’m too hot_ ”

“ _Hot damn_ ”

“ _And my band ‘bout that money, break it down_ ” Harry sung back, drumming his long fingers on the handles of the bike.

They equally divided the _Girls hit your hallelujah_ s and the _Whoo_ s between themselves, and by the end of the chorus, when they stopped because Harry burst out laughing, Zayn was shocked.

He objectively knew that all people knew how to laugh, but Harry never even smiled, at least not at Zayn, so Zayn didn’t think he could be blamed if he’d come to believe that Harry really didn’t know how. He sighed, looking at his broad shoulders tightening the t-shirt, and wished he could have seen how Harry looked when he smiled.

Zayn saw a big shopping centre to which they got closer and closer, and the truck with Louis, Liam and the others went by Harry and Zayn. “Tell ‘em and you’re dead” Harry rumbled, without turning.

Zayn grinned. “I would never dare betray you like that”

Harry scoffed, and parked the bike next to the truck, getting off the vehicle as Zayn did the same. Louis and Liam jumped off the truck with Andrew and Greg, the men who had been on guard duty the night Zayn had stumbled upon the Hole. Edward, the smith, followed suit with Angela and Rachel, while Iman, a boy barely past his teens, waited at the wheel, ready to start the truck and flee in case things went south.

Harry lightly punched Zayn in the arm to call him, and handed him a menacing-looking machete. “You can’t go inside without any weapons” Harry said shrugging “It should be free of zombies, we cleared it twice already. But you never know. Watch out for ‘em. And watch out for _other people_ ”

He didn’t wait for an answer and made his way inside the mall. “He likes you” Louis offered, patting Zayn on the shoulder “Harry never touches people more than strictly necessary”

“Shut up” Zayn muttered, rolling his eyes while his friends snickered.

The mall was apparently deserted, and of course the lights had probably stopped working a long time ago. But the windows were large, and the sun was filtering in enough to lighten the whole place.

“Louis, Liam, you get the meds. You have the list, yeah?” Harry said.

Louis nodded. “On it” he said, pulling Liam towards what had once been a pharmacy.

“Andrew, Greg. You raid the toiletries and first-necessities section”

The guys nodded and went, not before sending Zayn a worried, distrusting glance. Zayn rolled his eyes but didn’t react in any other way. He kind of understood it. They were the two main guards of the Hole, and much like Harry himself, they didn’t trust strangers and wanted to protect the place. Zayn sighed and wondered when they would stop thinking about him as a stranger.

“Ed, Angela, Rachel” Harry called, taking Zayn away from his own thoughts.

Angela smiled. “Seeds and long-conservation goods. Gotcha, boss” she said with a wink, and that left only Harry and Zayn.

“Canned food” Harry told Zayn.

They made their way towards their section, and Zayn got a little mesmerized at Harry’s long fingers stroking the shelves as they walked in the aisle. “Jesus, I don’t know what I’d do for one of those _Hunt’s_ diced tomatoes with garlic and oregano cans” Harry said, almost like he was talking to himself.

Zayn chuckled. “Shitty canned tomatoes?”

“Done with spaghetti” Harry clarified, looking at Zayn with a dead-serious gaze “This mall doesn’t have it. I bet it’s the first thing people raided, it was so fucking good” he added with a sad scowl.

 _This man is batshit_ , Zayn decided, but he couldn’t help the smile he felt spreading on his face.

“I miss smooth peanut butter” Zayn offered after a moment.

Harry hummed, and didn’t reply for a while.

They had big, empty bags with them, and they started filling them with all the canned food they could carry. “Why did you name the town Hole In The Ground?” Zayn asked casually.

He heard Harry chuckle. “It was supposed to be a joke, but it’s not that funny” he replied “Me and Niall, and some other people… we first took shelter in a panic room, when everything started. A literal hole in the ground. Then we found our current place, and we kept the name”

“The town looks like some shit out of _The Walking Dead_ , anyone tell you that? I mean, it’s a compliment. But still”

Harry laughed. “I had to physically stop Niall from naming the town ‘Alexandria’ or ‘Hilltop’ for that very reason, to be honest”

Zayn laughed too, and again, he wished he could have seen Harry’s face when he smiled. Zayn wasn’t sure it would happen again so soon.

At some point they put some distance between each other as they scanned different shelves, and almost like a weird joke, Zayn’s eyes landed on a particular can. _Hunt’s diced tomatoes with garlic and oregano_ stared at Zayn like a beacon, and he quickly gave Harry a glance. He was too far to have seen it, and it was just _one_ can on the whole shelf, so it had to be a sign. Zayn grabbed the can and stuffed it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

He was about to reach Harry to tell him his bag was full to the brim when a gurgling sound scared the shit out of him. He saw the corpse come out from behind the shelf right in front of Harry and grab his arm. Harry gasped, his other hand going for his dagger, but the corpse pushed at him, and he fell, with the corpse on top.

Zayn ran around the shelf and dug his machete into the corpse’s head, rotten blood spraying on Harry’s face while Harry squeezed his eyes and mouth shut.

“Fuck” Zayn muttered, kicking the corpse away and kneeling over Harry, carefully wiping the blood away with his own shirt “You’re good, you can open your mouth and eyes, there’s no more infected blood on your face”

Harry did. His eyes looked even more green in the daylight filtering through the windows. “Cheers”

“No problem. You good? Didn’t bite you, did it?”

Harry shook his head and sat up. “I’m okay”

Zayn held out a hand for him, and Harry looked at it for a moment before taking it and standing up.

The next moment, Harry was raising his dagger and lowering it on Zayn’s face.

No, not really. Zayn heard the familiar, disgusting gurgling sound a moment too late, but Harry was quick, and landed his dagger in the corpse’s head, right behind Zayn.

“Fuck” Zayn breathed.

Harry smirked. “We’re even now”

“Cheers” Zayn said.

Harry shrugged. “No problem” he said “We’re done here, I think. The others are too. Let’s get out of here. We can come and clear the mall out again some other time”

Zayn nodded, and they dragged their bags full of cans outside, throwing them and the other goods the others had scavenged in the back of the truck.

“How’d your date go?” Louis whispered to Zayn, wiggling his eyebrows.

Zayn snorted. “You’re such a twat”

“He is” Harry confirmed, suddenly behind them.

Louis jolted and smiled innocently at Harry, climbing back in the truck.

“You coming?” Harry asked Zayn, blank expression in place “You saved my life. I’ll let you drive the bike”

Zayn grinned, and moved to follow Harry to the bike, flipping Liam and Louis off behind his back for good measure.

 

*

 

The ride back was mostly silent, but Zayn didn’t mind. He loved the feeling of bike handles under his palms, and he loved the fact that Harry was the one wrapping his arms around his waist. Zayn had carefully removed the jacket and placed it inside the seat, much like Harry himself had done, to be sure Harry wouldn’t discover he’d withheld a can from the raid bag. With how suspicious Harry always was, he would probably think Zayn was trying to steal food, instead of trying to surprise him for dinner.

“You proved yourself to me today” Harry said, almost too lowly for Zayn to hear him, except Zayn did.

“Did I?” Zayn asked, eyes on the road and grinning.

He could almost see Harry rolling his eyes anyway. “Yes, Zayn. You could have let the zombie eat me. But you didn’t”

“I wanna stay at the Hole and be useful, Harry” Zayn said sincerely “I doubt letting the boss die would be an ace plan to stay”

Harry huffed a laugh. “Yeah”

They didn’t speak for a while, but the atmosphere between them felt relaxed enough that Zayn at some point dared ask Harry about something that was kinda nagging at him. “Why did you tell me to watch out for _other people_?”

He clearly heard Harry sigh behind him. “Not all people are good, Zayn. It was true before the apocalypse, and it’s still true now. You’re very naïve if you think otherwise. Trusting too easily can get you fucking killed”

 _Don’t I know it_ , Zayn thought, his heart constricting a little at the thought of Andrea, Meredith, Cam and Bryan, the people who had stayed with him, Louis and Liam in south Leeds, and who had died exactly by the hands of the _other people_ Harry feared so much.

Zayn knew Harry was right, but he also knew something must have happened to him too, to make him so suspicious of anyone. If the Harry who had surfaced every once in a while in the last hour was any indication, then Liam and Louis were right. Harry used to be a ball of sunshine before.

“I know” Zayn said grimly.

He heard Harry sigh. “Yeah. I know you do. Louis and Liam told me what happened, to your previous group. I’m sorry”

Zayn nodded, but he needed to add more to that. “But even after something like that, not trusting anyone will only make you miserable” he carefully told Harry “You and the people around you”

“I’d rather have them and myself miserable and alive, to be honest”

“And then you’d be alive, but you wouldn’t really live. You know?”

Harry heaved a big sigh. “Yeah, Zayn. Trust me, I know”

Zayn couldn’t hold back a smile. “I do”

“Do what?”

“Trust you” he clarified.

Harry didn’t answer, but Zayn felt Harry’s heart beat a little faster against his back, even with the engine roaring.

They made it back safe and sound, without any corpses getting in the way. The sun had almost set, and Zayn reluctantly parked the bike on the town hall backyard and let it go, getting off the vehicle and retrieving his jacket from inside the seat. “I never thanked you. For this” he told Harry, gesturing to the jacket.

Harry shrugged one shoulder. “I can’t wear it anyway. It’s too tight, and I honestly feel too much like Negan from _The Walking Dead_ when I wear leather now. You, on the other hand. You really looked like the leather-jacket kind of zombie apocalypse survivor when you showed up”

“I choose to take it as a compliment” Zayn declared “For hating _The Walking Dead_ , by the way, you sure reference it a lot”

Harry chuckled. “I loved the shit out of that show, to be honest. Too bad now we’ll never see the end of it. But I don’t want anything even _remotely_ close to the show to happen now that it’s real life. So I think relying too much on it is kinda like jinxing our whole existence”

Harry’s ramble didn’t make any sense to Zayn, but Zayn loved Harry’s voice too much to interrupt him. When Harry blushed and snapped his mouth shut, Zayn smiled. “Listen, I…”

“I have peanut butter” Harry interrupted him quickly, tripping over his words, looking at the ground “I found a jar in the mall. Do you wanna come have toasts with me at my place?” he asked, still blurting out the words and looking at everything except Zayn, retrieving a jar of smooth peanut butter from inside his own jacket.

Zayn snorted, and took out the tomato sauce can. “I found _Hunt’s_ diced tomatoes with garlic and oregano. I was gonna invite you over for dinner, but I wanted to check if Louis still has spaghetti in our kitchen cabinet first”

Harry’s eyes went huge in his face, and he gaped, looking at the can like Zayn was holding a brick of gold or a new-born baby. “I have spaghetti at home” he drawled “Do you wanna come?”

Zayn smiled. “Could do, yeah”

Harry nodded, and as they walked to Harry’s place, Zayn didn’t look at him, but he felt like Harry was smiling again.

 

*

 

Zayn had only been in Harry’s ‘office’ once, the night he’d come to The Hole In The Ground, and of course he’d never been in Harry’s actual place. It was shaped exactly like all the other houses in the town, the outside a mixture of red bricks and white paint, with a small porch where Harry had set two chairs. The inside looked exactly like the house Zayn shared with Liam and Louis. There was a small hall where they left their shoes, an open space that covered both the roles of kitchen and living room, and a small flight of stairs which probably led to the same small corridor with two bedrooms and a bathroom that Zayn had in their own house.

Harry eyed the can in Zayn’s hands, again like he was looking at a treasure, and Zayn ceremoniously handed it to him. “Why did you…” Harry stopped speaking, cleared his throat and then tried again “Why did you save it from the bag?”

Zayn grinned. “Why did you save the peanut butter?”

Harry didn’t reply. His cheeks became a lovely red, and he cleared his throat again before turning to the stove and setting a pot to boil water, and a pan in which he put some oil. Zayn watched him slowly open the diced tomatoes can and then throw the contents in the pan even more slowly.

“I still can’t believe you have electricity here” Zayn mused quietly.

“We” Harry corrected, without looking at Zayn “ _We_ have electricity”

Zayn smiled. “We” he repeated, a bit astounded that Harry was finally explicitly stating that Zayn was one of _them_.

“It’s thanks to Liam, to be honest” Harry said, still keeping his eyes on the pan where the tomatoes were starting to sizzle and he was stirring them with a wooden spoon.

“What is?”

“The electricity” Harry shrugged “We didn’t have it before Liam came here. I mean we had the cables and all, but none of us knew how to source them. Liam taught us how to build solar panels and latched electricity into the whole town. Granted, it’s not much energy, and we try to use it as little as possible, but still. A nice upgrade from living only on torches and boiling water on campfires”

Zayn chuckled. “Liam knows how to build computers and phones from scratch. I guess latching electricity to a town was no big deal”

Harry laughed. “Yeah, that’s what Louis said as well. He’s so utterly smitten with Liam, you’d think they’ve just started dating, and not that they’ve been together since high school” he answered, finally looking at Zayn.

Harry had dimples. Fucking dimples, sitting right in his cheeks and making him look years and years younger when he smiled. Zayn tried not to gape or stutter at the discovery, because he’d been right. Harry was ten times more beautiful when he laughed.

Zayn averted his eyes not to make a complete fool of himself, and his gaze landed on the small fridge by the counter, where three pics were plastered.

The first one was Harry, a widely-smiling Harry sitting in some kind of garden with his arm across the shoulders of a young woman with blonde hair and the same dimples digging deep in her cheeks. In the second one, Harry was in front of the town hall in the Hole, covered in dust and staring at Niall with a frown and his hands on his hips while Niall was laughing so hard his cheeks were red and he was bending forward, his hands propped on his own knees. In the third picture, Harry was again with the blonde girl who was most likely his sister, and an older couple was with them, a woman with dark hair and again, dimples, and a man with a round face, salt-and-pepper hair, and glasses.

Zayn also noticed there were spots of glue on the fridge, like some more pics had been stuck there and then had been removed. He didn’t ask anything, because Zayn was extremely sure none of those people were in the Hole, and that couldn’t mean anything good for Harry.

“They didn’t die like _this_ ” Harry said suddenly, and Zayn abruptly turned to look back at him, but he was concentrated on stirring the spaghetti in the pot “I mean, at least not my mum and Robin, my stepfather” he briefly pointed at the couple in the picture “Robin died years before the apocalypse. Cancer. My mum got in a car accident the day London was declared lost to the zombies by the government. She was trying to get out of the city and come back to Manchester, to me and Gemma, my sister” he pointed at the blonde girl without even looking, like he knew by heart where the pic with his sister was on the fridge “People had gone crazy. Started not giving a fuck about street laws. We got notified someone hit her at a crossroad. Smashed her car, and her head”

Zayn felt his stomach churn unpleasantly, but part of him, the egoistic part who always felt sorry for himself, was glad that at least Harry hadn’t seen his family turn into monsters.

He finished the thought too soon, though, because Harry kept speaking. “I got confirmation that the bites of the zombies turn you with Gemma” he said grimly “One of the zombies bit two of her fingers clean off. I always say this is nothing like _The Walking Dead_ , but we both knew the creatures were bloody zombies by that point. Gemma was stupid. Didn’t want me to cut her hand off before the virus could spread. She said she felt fine. And then she didn’t. She was my first zombie”

“I’m sorry, babe” Zayn sighed, sincerely, and then wished he could grab the pet name that had just left his lips to shove it back in his mouth.

Harry just lightly blushed, and drained the spaghetti in the colander before throwing them in the pan, where they sizzled while he mixed them with the tomatoes. “Maria is Italian. She almost had a stroke when she saw we usually mix the pasta and the sauce in the plates. She says the mixing has to happen in the pan or it’s not right” Harry said with a chuckle.

“We don’t wanna upset Maria” Zayn nodded seriously, meaning it, because the girl might be a teen, but she was fucking scary when people did what she called ‘weird shit’ with the food.

“Did you too?” Harry murmured when he started splitting the pasta in two plates “Lose your family, I mean”

Zayn had a brief, painful flash of Trisha calling him ‘sunshine’ and Yaser calling him ‘beta’. “Yeah” he answered “Kinda like what happened with your Gemma” he decided to add, because Harry had probably taken a big leap of faith to reveal so much about his own life, so Zayn could try and repay him in the same way “My father got bit. He didn’t tell us. We went to sleep. By the time I woke up at the commotion, he’d turned and bitten my mother and three sisters. He was my first corpse as well. Mum, Safaa, Waliyha and Doniya were the following”

“Fuck” Harry sighed “I’m sorry, Zayn”

Zayn shook his head, to tell Harry that it was okay, and also to get rid of the images of his family’s rotten blood on his hands. “It’s fine. Most people I met have the same story to tell”

Harry agreed sadly with a nod of his head, and then smiled at Zayn again, handing him one of the plates. “Let’s enjoy canned tomatoes” he just said.

Zayn chuckled and took the plate from his hands, and they both settled at the breakfast bar, Harry’s long limbs dangling from the stool as they ate in companionable silence.

Zayn tried to ignore or laugh at the pleased moans Harry emitted while eating every once in a while, but it was honestly very difficult, with the way he fluttered his eyelids and licked his lips at every bite. Zayn found himself already with a semi by the time their plates were empty, and he thanked God that Harry couldn’t see it under the table.

Harry sighed and rested his back to the chair, grinning at Zayn. “Thanks. For stealing the food”

Zayn laughed. “I don’t think anyone will notice or mind, that a normal can of tomatoes is missing”

“Normal” Harry scoffed “They were _heaven_. And now they’re gone” he pouted.

“I’ll scavenge more, babe, I promise” Zayn assured.

Harry blushed again at the pet name, and Zayn was frankly quite shocked that Harry could manage to be so bashful when he’d been nothing but a reserved, calculated leader in the past two weeks.

“Do you think it’s time for peanut butter toasts now, _babe_?” Harry grinned, dimples showing, and clearly mocking Zayn while he set two bread slices in the toaster.

Zayn chuckled. “’S always time for peanut butter, Haz”

Harry rolled his eyes with a smile that Zayn was almost sure was _fond_ , and then took the peanut butter jar from the counter, handing it to Zayn in the same ceremonious way in which Zayn had given Harry the tomatoes.

“We’ve probably gone batshit” Zayn said, taking ‘the baby’ from Harry’s hands.

Harry shrugged. “Might as well” he said “Go on, do the honours. Here’s the bread” he said, retrieving the slices which had popped out of the toaster mere seconds earlier.

Zayn set the bread in another plate and carefully spread the butter on both slices, humming an invented melody under his breath, and when he was done he took the greatest satisfaction he’d had in years by licking the knife completely clean.

“Disgusting” Harry said, with no heat behind it.

Zayn winked at him and gave the knife a last, unnecessary lick, making sure he kept the eye contact with Harry while doing it.

Harry’s cheeks went purple, and he averted his eyes. “You’re a little shit, ain’t you” he said, for the second time that day, and Zayn, for the second time, didn’t even mind.

“To stealing food no one else misses” Zayn said, hitting Harry’s toast with his own, like they were glasses in a toast.

Harry laughed. “To an excessive amount of calories” he retorted.

They bit the toast together, and kept eating it while staring at each other and giggling through their bites.

 _I could really like you, you know_ , Zayn found himself thinking, and pretending that he’d never thought it before even when Harry was hell-bent on hating him or at least ignore him.

“Um, you…” Harry said, pointing to Zayn’s mouth, after they finished their toasts.

And Zayn had watched too many rom-coms with Safaa not to recognize the opportunity, so he purposely cleaned the wrong corner of his mouth, staring intently at Harry.

Harry scoffed. “Really?”

“What?” Zayn grinned “I didn’t do anything”

“You’re a fucking menace” Harry huffed, and the moment later he was right in Zayn’s space, the tip of his tongue running to lick off the peanut butter from the other corner of Zayn’s mouth.

“Happy now?” Harry asked cockily, one eyebrow raised.

“Could be happier” Zayn shrugged.

“Like what?” Harry retorted, a dare in his low tone.

And well, Zayn could only resist a dare for so long, and if it was Harry, he probably never even had the chance to _start_ resisting.

So Zayn grabbed Harry’s jaw with his hand, and pulled him closer, kissing him properly.

Harry emitted a slow sigh when their lips collided, and Zayn used it to push his tongue further inside Harry’s mouth, licking the taste of peanut butter away, until all he could taste was Harry himself.

“Fuck, wanted to do this since I first saw you wearing the leather jacket, or probably even since you fucking entered this place that first night” Harry whispered between the kisses.

Zayn chuckled. “I’d say likewise, but I was too busy being scared that you’d kick me out”

Harry stopped and blinked. “But you’re not anymore? Scared that I’ll kick you out? ‘Cause I won’t” he blurted out “I never really wanted to. I love Louis and Liam. I never thought a friend of theirs could be bad. I’m just… wary. And I don’t trust easily. But I think I can trust you now. I think I started trusting you when I saw you work your ass off in the vegetables field, and…”

Zayn kissed him again, mostly to shut him up. “Shut up, babe”

“But I…”

“Shut up” Zayn whispered “It’s fine. It’s done. And I’m glad you think you can trust me”

Harry nodded, almost frantically, and didn’t speak anymore. He just kept kissing Zayn, his big hands roaming under his t-shirt, lightly scratching his stomach in a way that made Zayn hiss.

“It’s been a long time, babe” Zayn warned “You might wanna take it easy”

Harry shook his head. “I’ve never done easy. Not for years. And… it’s been a long time for me as well”

“Do you wanna show me your bedroom?” Zayn sighed. He’d gone for a grin, but he couldn’t be smug, not with how Harry was making him harden with a simple swirl of his tongue and a scratch of his nails.

Harry nodded and took Zayn’s hand, guiding him out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Harry had been quite forthcoming while they kissed and bickered, but as soon as they were inside his bedroom, he started embarrassedly looking at the floor and he stuttered a little bit, not being able to produce a coherent sentence as Zayn grabbed him by the hips and slowly stroked his sides.

“Harry?” Zayn whispered, feeling concern creep up his spine “It’s okay. We don’t… we don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to”

Harry shook his head, blushing a little, which was visible even in the dim light coming from the candles on the small bedside table and the dresser. “I want to. It’s just… it’s really been a long time. I don’t want you to, like, have too many expectations”

Zayn had to snort a laugh at that. “It’s been a ridiculously long time for me too, babe. So don’t have any expectations either, really”

Harry chuckled nervously. “But you want to? Because I do”

Zayn nodded. “I want to, if you do. Now let’s stop making it awkward, yeah?”

Harry chuckled again, and kissed Zayn, slowly pushing him to the bed until Zayn felt the edge of the mattress dig in his calves, and fell down on it, pulling Harry with him. “I haven’t had anyone in my bed for more than a year” Harry muttered, littering Zayn’s neck with kisses as his hands went between their bodies to grab at Zayn’s belt.

Zayn laughed. “A year? Harry, I haven’t fucked anyone since before the apocalypse _started_ ” he said “I guess now you don’t have to worry about expectations anymore”

Harry smiled, and kissed Zayn stupid before replying. “Stop making it awkward, you said” he grinned, and then promptly pulled Zayn’s jeans and boxers down.

Zayn hissed a breath when the chill air of the room hit him, because he was already hard and leaking. He watched Harry lick his lips with a hungry gaze as they both took care of removing the rest of each other’s clothes. They both crawled to settle in the middle of the bed and have more space.

“Can I blow you? I want to blow you, been thinking about it for weeks” Harry almost whispered, his face already at eye-level with Zayn’s dick, and his warm breath sending shivers up Zayn’s whole body.

Zayn chuckled. “By all means, Harry Styles”

Harry laughed, or better, he fucking _giggled_ , and then the next moment he was swallowing Zayn whole. Zayn uttered a curse, his hips bucking without his control, and Harry gagged a little.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry” Zayn breathed. He wasn’t actually sure that his body felt so wired and over-stimulated already just because he hadn’t had sex in a long time. He was starting to think that that was just how _Harry_ made him feel in general.

Harry raised his eyes. “Do that again” he said.

Zayn stared at him. “You want me to fuck your mouth?” he asked, his tone wondering, like he couldn’t believe his fucking luck, and he honestly couldn’t. “Would you like that?”

Harry nodded, his cheeks red. “Yeah. That, and… if you pull my hair”

“Secret kinks” Zayn stated with a grin “I like that”

Harry rolled his eyes and didn’t answer. He just went down on Zayn again, taking him halfway and waiting.

Zayn carded his fingers through Harry’s hair until he grabbed two fistfuls of it, and Harry just looked at him and nodded, causing his own mouth to slide up and down Zayn’s dick again.

Zayn’s eyes rolled in the back of his head, and he pushed Harry’s face downwards. Harry emitted a gagging sound, and Zayn gasped, stopping. “Just, like… pinch me or something if it’s too much, okay?”

Harry just nodded again, his eyes full of mirth when he stared at Zayn.

Zayn shoved Harry’s face on his dick again, and Harry hollowed his cheeks, his eyes kinda teary but still somehow happy.

Zayn held tighter on Harry’s hair, starting to guide his head and also thrust his hips forward in that heat, and when he pulled at Harry’s hair like he’d asked, Zayn was rewarded with a moan that rumbled through his whole crotch, cutting his breath.

“Fuck, Haz, babe” he whispered, still fucking Harry’s mouth, harder and faster when Harry’s moans increased.

Harry swallowed loudly around the head of Zayn’s dick when it hit the back of his throat, and Zayn cursed and moaned, not even caring to be embarrassed for how close he already was.

“Stop stop stop” he gasped, slowly pulling Harry’s hair again to make his mouth come off him.

Harry frowned, but before he could say anything, Zayn pulled him over himself again and kissed him, chasing his own taste on Harry’s tongue. “I don’t wanna come yet” he rasped on Harry’s lips “I want you to fuck me first”

Harry let out a breathy moan at that, nodding and kissing Zayn filthily, with his mouth open and his tongue swirling against Zayn’s. “Okay, okay” Harry conceded.

Zayn looked at him almost tear off a drawer from its hinges in the bedside table in the haste of rummaging through it to retrieve lube and a condom. Harry uncapped the half-empty bottle and squirted the lube on his fingers, his other big hand settling on Zayn’s stomach to make him lay down and stay still as he crouched between his legs and slowly circled his rim with one of his fingers.

Zayn tried to arch his back when the first digit went in, but Harry pressed his palm on his stomach some more, arching an eyebrow at him. Zayn moaned and got impossibly harder at that, because it had been a long time, but he still liked _that_.

Harry noticed. “Do you like it? Being held down?”

Zayn nodded, frantically. Harry hummed, smirking in that sexy way that had made Zayn fall head over heels for him already on that first night when he wanted to kick Zayn out.

He worked his fingers inside Zayn until they were three, until Zayn was a writhing mess under his steady hand, trying and failing to arch his back every time Harry only lightly brushed on his prostate.

“Babe, please” Zayn just said, feeling already embarrassingly close to coming again, and Harry probably took pity on him, because he nodded.

He kept his hand on Zayn’s stomach, and pressed him into the mattress at the same time he lined himself up and started to push past his rim.

“ _Fuck_ ” Zayn moaned, or better, he mewled, and Harry gasped, his hips stuttering as he tried to go slow while he breached Zayn completely and bottomed out.

He stayed very still after that, his back straight as he looked down at Zayn, still holding him down but observing him to see if he was comfortable.

Zayn nodded. “Move, babe”

Harry did. He started slowly sliding out and then back in, until Zayn felt the slight pain disappear and asked for more, not with his words, but with his eyes and his hands roaming up and down Harry’s arms, the parts he could reach with him towering over Zayn that way.

“Too far” Zayn managed to grit out.

Harry understood, and lowered himself on Zayn, grabbing his legs and draping them over his shoulders, not halting his thrusts in the process. When he was leaning on Zayn so much that Zayn’s thighs were pressed against his own chest, the change of angle made Zayn see stars.

Harry started to move harder and faster, his breath coming out in grunts and groans over Zayn’s mouth, his hair falling on Zayn’s face.

It was perfect, and Zayn kissed him. The kiss was slightly weird, because of their position, but Harry darted his tongue out to meet Zayn’s anyway, and soon enough Zayn felt an unstoppable heat rise in his stomach. “I’m gonna come” he warned Harry.

Harry nodded. “Come for me” he drawled “You’re so tight, Zayn, babe, you feel so fucking good”

He wrapped his hand around Zayn’s dick, giving him just a couple strokes, and then he snaked his other hand between their bodies, on his stomach again, pressing him into the bed in time with his thrusts.

That was what sent Zayn over the edge. His vision went white, but he also wanted Harry to come right that moment, with him. So he raised a hand, grabbed his hair, and tugged.

Harry shouted a grunt of Zayn’s name, his face burying itself in Zayn’s neck, and they both came, hard and together. Zayn felt his own come spill warm between their chests, and he also felt Harry filling the condom inside him.

They took their time to separate. Harry pulled out gently, stroking Zayn’s hair when he hissed at the discomfort, and then tied the condom to throw it in a bin under his desk. Zayn watched lazily as Harry took a t-shirt from his laundry bin, using it to wipe both their stomachs.

“Dicked me real good, for going a year without getting laid” Zayn slurred, sleepy and sated, grinning languidly at Harry.

Harry scoffed. “Took it very well, for going five years without getting laid”

Zayn laughed. Hard, a hand on his stomach. It wasn’t even that funny, but he felt like all his bones had gone to mush because of Harry Styles, so he might as well give in.

Harry gaped a little, staring at Zayn and biting down on his bottom lip to hide the fact that he wanted to laugh just the same.

Zayn slowly crawled over Harry, who was now lying down next to him. He pulled the abused bottom lip from the trap of his teeth, and when he did, Harry laughed openly.

Zayn poked his dimple. “Knew that” he didn’t manage to shut up.

“What?”

“You’re even prettier when you smile” Zayn explained.

Harry stuttered, his cheeks going purple, and then pulled Zayn down, to make him lay down with his cheek on Harry’s chest. “Shut up and sleep”

“Gotcha, boss” Zayn murmured, his eyelids closing half a second later.

 

*

 

It had most certainly been the best night of his last five years, and probably one of the best of his whole life too.

So Zayn was a bit dismayed when he woke up, still in Harry’s room, and he was alone in the bed.

He frowned, still feeling sore and fucked-out. He waited in bed for probably more than half an hour, but the absence of any other sounds in the house told him that Harry surely wasn’t there.

So Zayn got dressed, his stomach grumbling. But he didn’t feel like making himself breakfast in a house that was not his, the house of someone who had left him in bed to do whatever else. He knew it was probably just the need of caffeine that was making him be so stroppy about waking up alone, so he resorted to just go into the hall and wear his shoes to go back to _his_ place.

If Harry wanted him to stay, he should have stayed first. What was Zayn supposed to do?

When he opened the door, he realized the sun was already shining, and everyone was already at work.

 _Shit, I promised Maria to help her with the vegetables_ , he remembered, scratching the back of his head.

He spotted Maria, crouched on the soil, and winced apologetically in her direction. She just rolled her eyes. “You look like shit, but the good kind” she remarked when he got close enough to talk to her “Gotten some last night at last?”

“Shut up” Zayn rumbled, but he also scanned the area to find any sign of Harry.

It was not just a sign, there was a _whole_ Harry Styles there, by the smith booth, talking to Edward and Niall.

Maybe he just had his shit to do and had wanted to let Zayn sleep some more, Zayn thought, already feeling guilty for having thought Harry had just _left_ him there.

He smiled at Harry, waving.

Harry didn’t smile, though, and he turned his back on Zayn with a blank expression on his face.

 

*

 

“Maybe you should, like, _talk_ to him?” Maria offered that night around a mouthful or marshmallows, while they were sitting by the bonfire they’d organized for someone’s birthday.

Louis snorted a laugh, sitting between Liam’s legs in front of the fire, and he sent Maria a kiss, like he was happy someone had finally mentioned the elephant in the room.

Zayn pretended not to know what they were talking about, and filled his mouth with a marshmallow just the same, so he would have an excuse not to answer.

Maria, as per usual, wasn’t having any of his shit, though. “Harry” she specified “It’s been two fucking weeks, Zayn. You should talk to him”

Zayn shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We shagged and he obviously regrets it, so he started ignoring me again. It’s fine. We’ll both get over it”

The problem was that Zayn was, in fact, _not_ getting over it, because it _had_ been two fucking weeks.

“ _Ignoring_ you? Oh, Jesus” Liam sighed heavily, making Louis rattle at the movement of his chest, where he was leaning his back.

Maria rolled her eyes. “You two are so fucking stupid, really. You spend your time _trying_ to ignore each other, but then you look at each other when the other is not watching and you talk to each other very politely in front of people just to have an excuse to actually talk. It’s, like, painful to watch, to be honest”

“Then don’t watch, kiddo” Zayn retorted, pulling a little at her braid.

It was a bad call, because now he was remembering how Harry liked having _his_ hair pulled, how it had made him come so hard the only time they’d fucked, and Zayn wanted to do it again and again and again. And possibly really _talk_ to Harry as well, yeah.

Maria was right, though, because Zayn _knew_ Harry looked at him just like he looked at Harry. He had no idea what had happened in Harry’s brain to make something that could have been so _good_ go so _to_ _shit_ , but Zayn had learned to know Harry a little bit, so he knew it had something to do with his annoying trust issues.

Because everything was a trust issue with Harry.

“Do you know what happened to him?” Zayn asked “Like, before?”

Liam and Louis perked up at that, because they were also curious, but Maria sighed. “Don’t go there, Zayn, please. Like, I love you a lot, but it’s not my story to tell”

“I’m just trying to understand him”

Maria shrugged. “You can try to _ask_ him, if you want to understand him. You two are like floating around each other even without realizing it, so I highly doubt Harry’s really gonna push you away and tell you to fuck off if you go to him for real”

Zayn sighed. Maybe she was right. The kid was one of the wisest people around, and she wasn’t even nineteen. “Maybe I will. When I gather my wits enough”

She smiled and nudged his shoulder with hers. “It’s gonna be okay. Harry is… private. Keeps too many things too close to his heart. But he likes you. We can all see it” she stated, and then screamed towards Harry and some other people “What the _fuck_ are you doing? Are you putting fucking _pineapples_ on the pizzas I made? Do you have a fucking _death wish_?”

Zayn laughed as everybody winced and promptly pushed the canned pineapples away like they’d never even looked at them in the first place.

Harry also laughed, and Zayn stared at him, because it was still one of the best things in the whole fucking world, Harry Styles laughing.

They made eye contact. Zayn was tempted to drop his gaze, but when Harry didn’t, he didn’t either. They kept smiling a little, and kept looking at each other over the almost extinguished bonfire, while flames danced in Harry’s green eyes.

 _Yeah, I’ll talk to you. Very soon. As soon as I know how_ not _to fuck it up._

 

*

 

Zayn didn’t talk to Harry for another week, because every time he gathered the courage, someone beat him to the punch and took Harry away because they needed his advice on something.

That morning, though, Harry came looking for him first, while Zayn was smoking a cigarette by the vegetable field.

“Hey” Harry said, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Zayn smiled, trying to put him more at ease. “Hey”

“I, um. I need you for a raid. Sorry about the short notice. We’re low on medicines, and the weather’s getting colder so some kids are sick. It’s gonna be a short one. Just meds”

Zayn tried not to make his face fall too quickly. “Yeah. Sure” he said, stubbing the cigarette and following Harry to the entrance of the Hole.

He’d thought Harry had finally decided to talk things out, but no, he just wanted Zayn to go and kill corpses with him.

“Ride with me?” Harry asked, without looking at him, as he made a detour behind the town hall.

“Do you want me to?” Zayn retorted, harsher than he’d intended.

Harry flinched. He was in front of Zayn, but was giving him his back as he patted dust off the seat of his bike. “Yes” Harry said sternly, straddling the bike and finally looking at Zayn “Yes, I want you to ride with me, and in case you have any doubts, I want you to ride _me_ until I fucking die, Zayn”

Zayn felt his ears go on fire at the blatant statement, and stuttered, without replying.

“I’m sorry. We need to talk” Harry said sighing “Let’s go get the fucking meds with Andrew and Greg, and then we can talk when we come back”

 

*

 

Taking the meds from one of the abandoned malls littered around the big highway leading to the Hole was no big deal.

Harry and Zayn went with the bike, while Andrew and Greg followed them with their two horses. It was quick. They grabbed what they needed, stuffed the meds inside the backpack Andrew had brought, and moved to get on their vehicles – and animals – again.

The only problem was that as Harry and Zayn straddled the bike, they started to hear a noise.

The noise was familiar, although Zayn had been lucky enough to only hear it twice in his life before.

It was the sound of a herd of corpses approaching.

He felt Harry’s whole body go tense under his hands that he’d already wrapped around his waist to drive off.

When they raised their eyes towards the end of the road, right by the mall they’d just raided, Zayn saw it.

It was a herd, not that big, but more than fifty corpses. And they were coming straight towards them. “Herd” Harry said, unnecessarily.

“We can’t run. Can’t go back. They’ll follow us to the Hole” Greg said quickly, getting off his horse and strongly holding the reins of the animal who was already starting to get agitated.

Harry nodded, frantically, scanning the area. “We have no cover. We’re fucked”

Zayn kept looking at the herd, trying to think of a way to avoid it. There was no way, though. They could go inside the mall, but it was too risky, because if the herd swarmed it, or worse, waited outside for them, they would be stuck in the place forever.

Greg was right, they couldn’t go back to the Hole either, not without the corpses following them.

“We have to fight them” Zayn said, getting off the bike and sliding his machete from the sheath linked to his belt.

Andrew looked at him, arching an eyebrow. “Are you daft? There’s more than fifty of them. We’re _four_ ”

Zayn didn’t have time for Andrew and Greg not trusting him, though. “I’ve seen the three of you fight. And I’m good too. We can take them. We _have_ to, or we die”

Harry nodded, and he got off the bike as well. Zayn watched Harry slowly take his own machete from its sheath, his shoulders flexing as he kept it raised while the herd got closer. “If we die” Harry said, not looking at Zayn “Just know that I’ve been a stupid dickhead to you, and I know”

Andrew and Greg rolled their eyes, taking their position next to Harry.

Zayn chuckled. The corpses were mere feet away from them, their rotten hands already protruding to grab them. “If we _don’t_ die” he told Harry “You owe me explanations. A fuckton of ‘em”

Harry chuckled too. “I will speak until you get tired of my fucking voice” he promised, and threw himself at the first corpse coming his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was supposed to be a one shot and then before I knew it, it became VERY long. Meh.  
> Let me know what you're thinking :)  
> I am also on Tumblr as wont-you-stay-till-the-am.tumblr.com, come hit me up if you wanna talk.


	3. Skulls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I came to tell you that I know you’re upset at me. For not talking. Again. But I need to sort my overworking brain a little bit. And then I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I swear” Harry said.  
> Zayn didn’t expect Harry to be so clear and blunt about the umpteenth elephant in the room between them, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved that Harry was finally mentioning it.  
> So he nodded. “Take your time. We have time, don’t we?” he said.  
> Harry chuckled. “Who knows, these days. Maybe we don’t. But I’ll make time”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usual disclaimer: I don't know or own any of the characters present in this work. I only own the plot and the original characters.
> 
> Another disclaimer: I know this was supposed to be the last chapter, but when I wrote it, it just became TOO long, so I had to split it in two shorter chapters. Forgive me!

 

 

 

Harry Styles was a fucking killing machine.

Zayn was too busy trying not to get eaten alive to properly _enjoy_ Harry fighting, but he was looking at Harry with the corner of his eye nonetheless.

Harry was a blur of curls and bloody machete as he sliced corpse head after corpse head, moving so graciously that he looked like he wasn’t even touching the ground. It would have been a remarkable feat for anyone, but it was _especially_ for Harry, considering that he managed to trip on air at least twice a day when they were at the Hole.

Now, though, Harry was just _dangerous_ , Zayn thought. He moved with such ease, letting the corpses come at him only to shove his machete through their heads, one, two at a time, a pile of rotten, _really dead now_ bodies around him as more tried to get a piece of him, failing.

A particularly nasty-looking corpse grabbed Zayn by the wrist. It had a piece of its jaw hanging by a single tendon of muscle, and its eyes were melting, blood and nerves and gore drizzling down its bony cheeks. Its scalp was half-ripped off, exposing the bloody globe of its skull.

“Nasty fucker, get off me” Zayn murmured, and planted his machete right in the middle of its head.

“They can’t really hear you, you know that, right?” Harry chuckled, panting as he drove his machete through three corpse heads _at once_.

“Holy fuck, Haz” Zayn breathed “Where did you even learn to…”

Harry jumped on him, and the gurgling sound behind him told him he’d been distracted and about to die, but Harry had saved his sorry ass by killing the corpse for him. “Please don’t die” Harry told him.

“Sorry” Zayn chuckled nervously.

They stayed back to back, fighting off the corpses together and more at ease, knowing that their back was protected by the other. Zayn saw Andrew and Greg were doing the same.

“We’re done” Harry said.

It was true. There were only four corpses left, and each of them took care of one.

The silence that greeted them after the herd was dead confirmed that they had indeed escaped being slaughtered.

They rested their backs against the wall of the mall, all four of them panting. Andrew and Greg looked at each other, and then at Zayn. Zayn nodded. If they thought that their little adventure of killing corpses together was gonna make Zayn like them, they were sorely mistaken. But he was at least glad none of them died.

Especially not Harry.

He opened his mouth to remind Harry about the explanations he owed him since they didn’t die, but he never did, because right that moment he heard the sound of hooves stomping on the ground in front of them.

He barely had time to raise his head and see five men on horses before Harry grabbed his arm so hard it was surely gonna leave bruises. “Skulls” Harry hissed, pulling Zayn behind the wall of the mall while Andrew and Greg also ran for cover.

Something hissed right past Zayn, and he felt a burning ache through his arm. He screamed in pain, and Harry kept pulling him until they were behind the building. Zayn looked down at his arm. There was a fairly big cut on it, caused by a fucking _arrow_ that those people on horses had thrown.

“Fuck” he muttered, pressing his hand on the wound from which blood was gushing out. He fell down and breathed slowly, trying to will the pain away.

“Fuck fuck fuck” he heard Harry mutter. He was kneeling next to Zayn, panting heavily and trying to help him stop the bleeding with his hands.

“I’m okay, Harry, I’m okay!” Zayn exclaimed to stop Harry from handling his wound so frantically in his haste.

Harry turned to Andrew and Greg. “You said the Skulls weren’t _here_!” he hissed at them.

“Harry Styles!” one of the people shouted from a distance “You’re _trespassing_ ”

Andrew stroked his face with one hand, pale as a ghost. “They weren’t, we checked, me and Greg, we checked this morning, they weren’t here!” he whispered.

“Well they are now” Greg said quickly “They are armed and we’re on their fucking territory”

“You’re trespassing and you killed our welcome committee” someone else snickered.

Zayn looked at Harry. “Who the fuck are these people?” he asked. His arm was shaking. He didn’t know a fucking graze from an arrow could hurt that much.

Harry took a shaky breath. “The Skulls. They’re the _other people_ I warned you about some time ago” he answered, and then tried to clear his throat “ _You_ sent the herd our way?” he screamed.

The people laughed. “Wanted to see the great Harry Styles in action” one of them replied.

 _You fucking did, I guess_ , Zayn thought. He was cold. Why was he cold? The sun was high in the sky.

Harry looked at Zayn, still pressing his hands on the wound. “You need a doctor. The bleeding’s not stopping. Shit. Fuck. What do we do?” he turned to Andrew and Greg.

Andrew took a breath. “What do you want, Nick?” he asked.

 _Why are they talking to us instead of attacking us?_ , Zayn wanted to ask, but his throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

The man, probably the one called Nick, laughed. “Everything you have, of course. We were respecting our end of the deal. You _didn’t_. You’re in our territory”

“We needed meds!” Harry shouted “Kids are sick! We had no choice!”

Someone laughed. “And that matters to me _how_ , exactly? You only care about _your_ people, Harry Styles. You can’t blame me for doing the same”

“I let you live” Harry said coldly “I let you live”

“And he shouldn’t have” someone else said.

Zayn recognized that voice. His head was spinning, but he’d spent time with that voice since he was five. It was Louis.

Zayn heard some noises, hisses, horses neighing, and mutters. Harry laughed. “The scouts. Louis. They found us”

“So you’re the infamous Skulls?” Louis asked, a mocking smirk in his tone “Imagined you to be bigger. Piss off, lads. You have arrows, we have guns. It’s not rocket science”

Nobody answered for a moment. Zayn’s eyelids were drooping. “I don’t feel that great, Haz” he said, but his mouth didn’t feel like moving properly.

When Harry looked down at him again, Zayn saw his face lose all the colour. “This is not normal. This can’t be just a fucking cut” he murmured “What did you do to him?” he shouted “What did you do, Nick?”

One of the Skulls laughed. “Good luck with our new poison” the voice belonging to the man called Nick said.

Zayn heard horses neighing again, a stomp of hooves rumbling through the ground and deafening him, and a moment later a lot of hands were touching him, pulling him up, dragging him over the dusty road.

Louis slapped his face, twice. “Zed! Zed, stay the fuck up! Do you hear me, Zed?”

The ground started to feel strangely soft, and then dissolved under Zayn’s feet. The last thing Zayn felt before passing out were Harry’s hands wrapping around him not to let him fall.

 _‘S very strong, this Harry Styles_ , his brain provided, and then shut down.

 

*

 

When Zayn came to, he could feel that he was lying down in a bed, but when he tried to open his eyes, they didn’t cooperate. He felt like he had forgotten how to move, and when he tried, pain jolted up his arms and legs and head, so he gave up. _Maybe if I just don’t move_ , he thought.

He heard voices, blurry and distant like they were speaking through a low-quality phone call. _I remember phones, they’re gone, I used to think I’d die without my phone but I am alive without it now. Am I alive? Am I dying?_

“What’s happening to him? You can save him, Jen, right?” the voice asked. It was a slow drawl, a voice Zayn had learned to recognize, but it was laced with fear and panic.

“I dunno, Harry. It’s poison. I don’t know which, though, and we don’t have antidotes to any poison here anyway. I stopped the bleeding and fed him things to induce vomit. He threw up, but I don’t know if it’s gonna be enough” someone replied. A woman. Jen, the doctor. _She’s cool_.

A heavy sigh. “He can’t die like this, not after everything he survived, there has to be a way”

“We have to see how tonight goes. If… if he survives the night, then there’s a good chance his body will sweat off the poison”

Zayn lost the voices after that.

 

*

 

_“Sunshine?”_

_“Mum?”_

_“My baby. You’re so good. You’re doing great. But you have to wake up”_

_“You’re dead. I’m sorry I killed you”_

_“You had to, beta”_

_“Baba?”_

_“Yes. We’re doing good, beta. We’re doing great. You have to wake up”_

_“Wake up, Zayn”_

_“Saf? Are you here too?”_

_“Wake up, Zayn”_

_“Wali?”_

_“Wake up, Zayn”_

_“Doni?”_

“Wake up, Zayn”

Zayn knew the last voice didn’t belong to his dream. It was real, tired, hoarse, shaking with tears. He tried to blink, and failed to open his eyes.

“Zayn” Harry sniffled “Please, wake up. The night’s almost gone. You have to survive the night. Jen said you’ll die if you don’t. Wake up, Zayn”

Zayn called his name, but only a long, drawn groan came out. He tried again, and again, and again, until he managed. “Harry”

“Zayn?” Harry gasped. Zayn could feel him, sitting right by his side.

Zayn flexed his fingers, and he managed. Something was enveloping them. Other fingers. Harry’s fingers. Zayn liked Harry’s fingers.

“Zayn?” Harry called him again.

Zayn gathered all his strength for the simple task of opening his eyes. He peeled them open, with almost physical pain.

The room was dark except for a candle on the bedside. It was the infirmary, Zayn thought. He’d been there only once, when he’d cut his hand while handling the crops, but he recognized the white tiles around the walls and the other beds lined next to his.

“Hurts” Zayn said. He wanted to say, _Don’t worry, babe, it hurts, but not that much_ , but he didn’t know if he’d manage to speak that long ever again.

“I know” Harry said. Zayn couldn’t see him, couldn’t move his head, so he could only look at the ceiling. “I know” Harry repeated “I’m sorry, babe, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault”

Zayn shook his head on instinct. It was the worst of calls, because everything started spinning and pounding inside his skull. He gasped in pain. _What’s happening to me? Am I alive? Am I dying?_

“No” he gritted, using his voice instead of his body “Not. Your. Fault. Babe” he added, taking too much time in between words.

Harry huffed a teary chuckle. Zayn really wanted to see him. “I can’t see you. Too far” he said. He vaguely remembered already telling Harry that he was too far, once, and they’d been in a bed that time as well.

Zayn heard the sliding of a chair on the floor, and the sound was unpleasant and deafening, but the next moment Harry’s face was in his line of sight, hovering over him. His big hands cupped Zayn’s cheeks. “Tell me you’re surviving, babe” Harry said in a whisper.

“I… try” Zayn replied.

“You’re burning up” Harry muttered. He disappeared, and when he came back, something pleasantly cold was on his forehead. A damp cloth, Zayn decided. _Damp cloths are the best_ , he thought. _I could marry damp cloths._

“You wanna marry damp cloths?” Harry said “You’re delirious”

“You are” Zayn retorted, feeling stroppy and petty beyond remedy “I want coffee. And you. Fucking me”

“God, please, let him live ‘cause I don’t wanna hear this only if he’s delirious with a fever” Harry mumbled, like Zayn wasn’t there, while still stroking his forehead with the cool cloth. “You’re too hot”

“ _Hot damn_ ” Zayn replied. His voice was all fucked up. Why? _Did I give you head and I don’t remember? I wanna remember if I did._

Harry chuckled. “Oh, please, don’t die, this is gonna be hilarious when you’re gonna be in your right mind and I’ll tell you”

“Fucking arrows” was Zayn’s last eloquent statement before falling asleep again.

 

*

 

“Is he gonna be fine? I don’t want him to die”

 _Maria_ , Zayn thought when he slowly came out from his slumber.

“Yeah, sweetheart. Jen said he survived” Harry replied. Zayn felt the back of Harry’s cool hand brush his forehead, probably to check if he was too warm.

“He’s been in here for _five_ days, Harry. Are you sure he’s gonna live?” Maria said stubbornly.

“I can die if you prefer” Zayn managed to say. His throat still felt like cotton balls, but it was better. Words came out more easily, he noticed.

He heard Maria gasp. “He’s alive!”

“I told you” Harry chuckled. Zayn could feel Harry’s relief in his laugh.

He slowly peeled his eyes open, only to be met with Maria’s huge, dark eyes, just an inch away from his face. His eyes went cross. “Yo, kiddo”

“You’re alive!” she screamed, and plopped down on Zayn’s chest, hugging him.

It knocked the wind right out of Zayn, but his arms went around Maria’s small frame without hesitation. _Five fucking days_ , he thought, a bit astonished. He literally didn’t realize time was still flowing.

Maria sniffled. “You scared the _shit_ out of me”

“Let him breathe, maybe?” Harry said, his tone a bit pissed, but when Zayn finally looked at him, he could see his dimples.

Harry looked like shit, to be honest. He had bags under his eyes, and his hair was tied in a messy bun. “Hi” he told Zayn, sighing.

Zayn smiled, still holding Maria close and petting her thick braid. “Hi”

“Hi” Maria offered, raising her head to grin at Zayn.

Zayn laughed, and it hurt a little bit, but he was happy to be alive anyway. He noticed a bandage on his arm when Maria finally let him go. The girl sat down on his bed, right next to him, while Harry sat down on the opposite side.

“Andrew and Greg told me I had to start looking for my shovel to dig your grave” Maria told Zayn, frowning in that scary way that made no one take the piss on her even if she was still a kid. Well, not a kid. An eighteen-year-old. Basically a kid.

Zayn chuckled. “Did you? Dig my grave?”

“Nope” it was Harry who replied “She kicked both of them in the bollocks”

“Screaming like toddlers, they were” Maria assured “I told ‘em already twice. You don’t mess with a southern Italian”

Zayn laughed, hard. He held his stomach, because his body still felt a bit off, and it hurt to laugh that much, but he did. “Oh, kiddo” he said when he recovered his breath “They fucking deserved it, to be honest. They’re dickheads most of the time”

Harry cleared his throat. “I won’t promote hate in my town” he declared.

Maria arched an eyebrow at him. “You almost killed Edward when he told you he was sorry for your loss”

Harry blushed. “That’s… that’s ‘cause I didn’t lose _anything_ , cheers” he replied, crossing his arms.

Zayn smiled at him. _We’re doing good, we’re doing great_ , he thought, vaguely remembering his family telling him the same in a dream while he was unconscious.

Maria rolled her eyes in the way that Zayn had learned to think as Maria®, and then stood up from the bed, pulling a wheeled tray closer to Zayn. “I made you pizza” she declared, and Zayn’s stomach grumbled at the sight of the perfectly round baked _heaven_ sitting on the plate “And” she added, with a theatrical sigh “You can even put pineapple on it. Just this once, just ‘cause it’s _you_ , and just ‘cause you almost died”

She gently set the pizza on a small wooden tray on Zayn’s lap, and then handed him canned pineapples with a disgusted expression. “You people are batshit and I can’t believe I’m letting you do this. Eat. Get well. Niall’s talking my ears off on the vegetable field every morning now that you’re not there. There’s only _so much_ I can tolerate”

She gave Zayn a smacking kiss on the cheek and was gone in a blur of wild curls escaping her braid, before either Zayn or Harry could reply.

Yeah, Harry. Harry who was still there, still sitting by Zayn’s side on the bed, and staring at him with a lot of different things in his eyes.

“Hey” Zayn said lamely.

Harry smiled, fiddling with the hem of Zayn’s duvet. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

“Like I got run over by a truck” Zayn said honestly “But better”

Zayn couldn’t remember what had happened for the life of him, but Harry showed no sign of wanting to clarify how things had fared since they’d gone to take meds from the mall.

“How are the kids?” Zayn asked “The ones who were sick. Did we get the meds for them? Are they okay?”

Harry nodded, his smile weaker but somehow more earnest. “They’re all good. Thanks, Zayn. You… you almost died, and yet here you are, asking about the kids”

Zayn didn’t really like how surprised Harry sounded, but he decided not to point it out for now. “I care about ‘em. Everyone, really. I still don’t think Andrew and Greg are particularly nice and I know the feeling’s mutual, but I’m glad they’re okay too”

Harry chuckled. “I’m glad _you_ are okay” he said, finally raising his head to look at Zayn.

When their eyes met, Zayn’s brain instantly became more lucid. He started to remember just how he’d ended up in that bed, the people called the Skulls hurting him with an arrow, Louis, Liam and the other scouts saving them from probably instant death.

“The Skulls” Zayn murmured, stroking his palm over the bandage on his arm. It didn’t hurt that much anymore.

Harry sighed, and nodded grimly. “Yeah. They’re… bad people. They live in a prison building some miles north from here. It’s my fault, Zayn, I’m so sorry. We needed the meds and the closest place was in their territory, but I thought we would be safe anyway and I decided to trespass, putting you all in danger. I’m sorry”

Zayn understood why Harry was blaming himself, but Harry spent most likely half of his time blaming himself, and Zayn hated the sad tilt of his lips. “Haz, babe. It’s okay. I would have done it too. We needed the fucking meds. It’s not your fault”

Harry didn’t reply, but Zayn saw his shoulders relax a little bit, which was a good sign. As they kept being silent, Zayn pieced another memory back together. “They said you made a deal with them and they were respecting it but you broke it by trespassing”

Harry nodded. He opened his mouth to reply, but right that second, Zayn’s stomach decided it was a good moment to rumble loudly again and interrupt them.

Harry chuckled and got off the bed.

“Don’t go” Zayn said, louder than he’d originally intended, and then feeling his cheeks and ears warm up for reasons that had nothing to do with poison and arrows.

Harry smiled. “I’m not going anywhere” he assured “I’m just sitting on the chair so you have enough space to eat. You eat, and I talk, how’s that sound?”

Zayn smiled and nodded. “Okay, I could work with that”

Harry waited for Zayn to take the first bite off Maria’s pizza, which was the best fucking pizza he’d ever tasted as per usual. It was so good that Zayn decided to even skip the pineapples.

“The first time we ran into the Skulls was a year ago” Harry said at some point “Most of the people you’ve met since you came here were already here with me by that point. We were doing great, rebuilding what needed to be rebuilt, carrying on with life, you know. Then the Skulls came, and everything went to shit”

Harry stopped speaking, but Zayn didn’t spur him on, because he’d probably never seen Harry so sad. So he waited until Harry collected himself a little bit and kept speaking.

“They managed to come inside the town. Caught us by surprise. They killed half my people, Zayn. Our first doctor, Simon. Most of my council. Maria’s parents, too, who were the ones who had finally managed to make things grow from the soil. All my closest friends, except Niall. They almost killed Niall too. You’ve seen the scar he has on his back, haven’t you? It was the Skulls, that night”

Zayn was glad he’d managed to eat half the pizza before Harry got to that point, because his stomach immediately closed off at that. He had indeed seen the scar on Niall’s back. It was a long, thick, oblique cut, crossing his whole back from his right shoulder to his left hip. Niall was still a great fighter, but he sometimes complained about how the scar hurt when he strained his back too much or when the weather changed. He’d never told Zayn how he’d gotten that, probably because it was too close to the whole Skulls deal. It didn’t take a genius to understand it was what had happened with them that had made Harry so distrusting, so suspicious.

“We won, in the end” Harry said after a moment “We had our losses, but they did too. I had them by the balls at the end of it. I killed some of them, and I got the upper hand. I’d never killed before, not real humans, and I never did again after that. I was in the position to strike a deal with them. So I did”

“How did you manage to strike a deal with those people?” Zayn asked, frowning.

Harry lowered his eyes. “I had the their leader’s son at knifepoint. Nick, the man who hurt you. His father was the boss at the time. The day he hurt you we found out his father’s dead, so now he’s the leader of the Skulls. I threatened to cut Nick’s throat that night, a year ago, and Nick’s father knew I wasn’t bluffing. He accepted my deal to save Nick’s life” he said, not delving further into the matter.

Zayn didn’t ask for more. It was enough, more than enough, for the first actual time Harry was speaking about his past.

“I made them a deal which was even too fair, Niall told me more than once” Harry said “I let them all leave and live, at the condition that they would never come close to the Hole, and never harm any of my people. I gave ‘em the roads at the end of the highway. Told them that would be their territory, and that we wouldn’t trespass if they didn’t either”

“And they went? Just like that?”

Harry shook his head. “I promised not to get any kind of revenge for the people they’d killed. I let Nick go. I didn’t punish any of them for what they did. I bet they thought I was just stupid and soft, bet they couldn’t believe their fucking luck” he concluded with a bitter chuckle.

Zayn didn’t think Harry was stupid and soft. He knew Harry would have killed every single Skull if he’d really wanted to, because he’d seen Harry Styles in action more than once, and there was nothing stupid or soft about him. “You did what you deemed best to avoid more unnecessary bloodshed, Harry” Zayn told him “I understand it. Your people understand it. And I’m sure the Skulls understood it too. If they think you’re stupid and soft, it’s only ‘cause it’s what makes them sleep at night and gets their mind off the fact that a single person had the whole lot of them by the bollocks”

Harry just smiled, and Zayn thought that maybe he appreciated Zayn’s opinion even if he didn’t say. “I know it’s my fault for trespassing. But I didn’t have any other choice. And besides… the way they had time to steer a whole herd against us, the way they were already armed… it makes me think that they were already watching us from before we went to the mall. Which means they already planned on breaking the deal just the same”

Zayn nodded. He definitely agreed with Harry on that. Steering a herd was not an easy task, it took time and space, a time and space the Skulls wouldn’t have had on a whim if they just _happened_ to see Harry and the others trespassing. They were being watched.

“Why do you call ‘em The Skulls?” Zayn asked after a while.

Harry shrugged. “They have skulls tattooed on their ankles. I didn’t tell anyone about the tattoos, not even my council, because I don’t want us to become a community so distrusting that we have to check each other’s ankle to make sure no one’s a traitor, but I guess I can tell you. I think the first of them were, like, ex-cons, so they had the tattoo from prison I guess. And then they decided to use it as a symbol. If I’d known what it meant before meeting them, I could have avoided many deaths here. But I didn’t, and people died”

“Harry, this is not your fucking fault” Zayn said, more sternly than he actually felt “You have to stop blaming yourself for things that you can’t control, it’s pointless”

Harry shrugged and smiled, but a corner of his mouth was tilted downwards. “I haven’t been doing much else for a year now, Zayn. It’s gonna be a while before I change my ways” he said, and Zayn hated his cold tone so so much “And… I could have controlled it. I had all the fucking control at that point, but I didn’t realize what hit me anyway”

“What do you even mean?” Zayn sighed.

_What do you mean, babe? How did the Skulls manage to get into the town a year ago, right under your suspicious and attentive nose?_

Harry stood up and smiled, patting Zayn’s leg under the duvet. “It is what it is” he said unhelpfully “Finish your food and get better, Zayn. We can talk some more another time. Now you just need to rest”

He left Zayn alone with the pizza, and alone with even more questions than when he’d started.

 

*

 

“You seen Harry?” Zayn asked on the ninth day since the poisoned arrow.

Maria arched an eyebrow at him. “You don’t like my company now?” she snapped, and started counting on her thin fingers “I made you pizza. I made you pasta. I baked you bread and fucking muffins. I spend my precious free time hanging out in the infirmary with you just ‘cause your sorry ass is bored. And you’re thinking about where your boyfriend is?”

Zayn laughed at Maria’s indignation, and pulled her in a hug. They were both sitting on Zayn’s bed, and Zayn was honestly more than fine, but Jen was insisting he had to stay there at least another day for some last check-ups. Zayn felt like his arse had become one thing with the mattress, and he would have _killed_ just for a cigarette and a whole day spent on the field planting vegetables.

“Your pecs are not gonna bribe me” Maria said, her voice coming out muffled from where Zayn was hugging her so tight her face was squished on his chest “Let me fucking go, you stupid twat” she complained, getting free from Zayn’s arms with a grunt.

“Language” Zayn grinned.

Maria rolled her eyes. “Have you talked to him?”

“To whom?”

She chuckled. “To the person you’d rather have here instead of me” she arched her eyebrows “Have you talked to him?”

Zayn sighed. “Yeah, but not that much. He told me who the Skulls are. Told me he made a deal with them last year. But when I told him that he shouldn’t be blaming himself, he clammed up and left. He’s spent a lot of time here with me since then, but we haven’t talked about it again, and neither have we talked about us”

“So you _didn’t talk_ ” Maria groaned, frustrated “I swear to God, I thought us teenagers were the ones with the useless drama before meeting you two”

“Heeeey”

The long, drawled vowel made both their heads turn to the door. Harry was on the threshold, grinning and with his arms crossed over his chest. He had one of his white t-shirts on, and Zayn was definitely all healed, because now he was starting to think about Harry’s biceps again, and how they’d looked when they’d strained to hold him down against the mattress. Zayn wanted to see _that_ again.

Maria sighed. “Are you here to arrest me?” she asked Harry.

Zayn frowned, but Harry just laughed. “This one went missing from the field an hour ago” Harry told Zayn, pointing at Maria.

Zayn looked at the girl, victorious for being the one arching his eyebrow at her now.

Maria stuttered. “T-The muffins!” she exclaimed “They need to be _watched_ if you don’t wanna burn them. It’s your fault really, Zayn. For having a sweet tooth and being in the hospital”

“Why’s it always my fault?” Zayn complained.

Maria shrugged. “It is what it is” she stated, standing up “Now I’m gonna go back to work. I don’t want Harry to arrest me. And I sure don’t want those two fuckers to arrest me either”

Harry snorted. “Still hating Andrew and Greg?”

“They’re nasty” Maria replied “Never fucking shower. I have a theory that the zombies don’t come close to our town just ‘cause Andrew and Greg’s stinking arses are covering up our smell”

Zayn, who was in the process of drinking the orange juice Maria had brought him, spluttered and coughed when he was caught by a fit of laughter. “I love you” he told Maria when he calmed down, wiping the tears in his eyes.

Maria grinned. “I love you too, Z” she said kissing him on the cheek “Now off I go. Bye Harry!” she added cheerfully, stopping to raise herself on the tips of her feet to give Harry a kiss on the cheek as well.

When they were alone, Zayn stood up from the bed, wishing he had actual clothes on, and not his pyjamas. “Hey”

Harry smiled. “Hey. I came to tell you that Jen said you’re free to go”

 _Ah, fuck, fucking finally_. “Really?” he laughed.

Harry nodded, his loose curls bouncing around his face. “Yep” he assured, popping the ‘p’ “And I also came to tell you that I know you’re upset at me. For not talking. Again. But I need to sort my overworking brain a little bit. And then I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I swear”

Zayn didn’t expect Harry to be so clear and blunt about the umpteenth elephant in the room between them, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved that Harry was finally mentioning it.

So he nodded. “Take your time. We have time, don’t we?” he said.

Harry chuckled. “Who knows, these days. Maybe we don’t. But I’ll make time”

And Zayn had watched those lovely cheeks from a distance in the last days, while he was too weak and hurting too much to focus on Harry sitting next to him. He was fine now, though, so he didn’t feel guilty in the slightest when he crossed the room in three long strides and came right into Harry’s space, crowding him against the closed door and breathing on those warm, pink lips.

“I don’t mind keeping doing what we did some time ago, while you sort yourself out” he said honestly, scanning Harry’s eyes while he spoke.

Harry took a sharp breath. “I thought you didn’t want to. Not anymore, after how I left you”

Zayn chuckled. “Oh, Haz, babe, I only started wanting you more after you dismissed me that way”

“I didn’t want to _dismiss_ you!” Harry exclaimed, outraged “I was just… freaking out a little bit. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, though”

“Then don’t” Zayn said “Don’t stop thinking about me ever again”

Harry smirked. “I dunno. Maybe I forgot what to think about you”

Zayn had always had problems with challenges. He’d found himself drinking toilet water and climbing onto rooftops more than once because of dares leaving Louis’s drunk mouth, or Liam’s, or anyone’s, really.

The challenge and dare he could see in Harry’s green eyes was no different, apparently.

Zayn just smirked back, and before Harry could even realize it, Zayn was sinking on his knees, grabbing the hem of Harry’s jeans and zipping them open, pulling them down.

“Fuck, Zayn, what are you…”

“Shush, babe, or Jen’s gonna hear us” Zayn whispered, releasing his breath over Harry’s already hard dick.

Harry lightly banged his head against the door and closed his eyes. “Fuck” he said again.

“Do you want me to stop?” Zayn asked.

Harry lowered his head again, to look right at Zayn. “Don’t you fucking dare. I wanna see how rough your voice gets when you give me head”

Zayn was a bit astounded at that. “How do you know my voice gets fucked up when I give head?”

Harry chuckled. “You might have mentioned that, while you were delirious. And also that you wanted me to fuck you again”

Well, that was the complete and honest truth. So Zayn didn’t waste more time, and showed Harry just _how_ his voice could be fucked up.

Harry didn’t complain, though. Not even a little.

 

*

 

“Always so fucking tight” Harry grunted as he kept Zayn pressed against the wall, fucking him from behind in the silence and dim lights of Harry’s own living room.

“Yeah?” Zayn breathed, trying to plaster his back more against Harry’s chest “You like it?”

“Fuck, I love it” Harry groaned, snapping his hips harder.

It hit Zayn’s prostate dead-on, and they’d been fucking for ages, on every surface of Harry’s house, horizontal or vertical, so it was all Zayn needed to come once again.

It was dawn. They hadn’t even slept for a minute.

Harry fucked Zayn through his orgasm, and Zayn clenched hard around him, knowing that would set Harry off the edge too.

He let Harry come inside him, long and hard, before pushing back so that they could remove themselves from the wall and plop on the couch in a tangle of limbs. Harry pulled Zayn to him, making him settle between his legs and tucked under Harry’s arms.

It had been two full weeks since Zayn had definitely gotten back on his feet. Harry still hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to talk and set things straight, but he’d been showing Zayn just how much he trusted him and wanted him around in other ways, so Zayn didn’t feel like complaining.

Harry had never left him asleep in bed alone again. Zayn had gotten used to waking up to mouthfuls of curls and big arms wrapped around his body. They were never really apart, and when they were, they came together at night anyway, ripping each other’s clothes and biting at each other’s skin like they hadn’t touched each other in months, and not just mere hours.

“It’s my birthday today” Harry said conversationally.

Zayn jumped and sat up to look at him. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, Zayn. People do still have birthdays” Harry said with a grin.

“And you didn’t think to mention this a little earlier so that I’d _know_ , right?” Zayn rolled his eyes.

Harry shrugged. “Why would you need to know in advance?”

“To get you a _present_ , maybe?” Zayn growled.

Harry laughed and pulled Zayn to his chest again, kissing him stupid for maybe a hundred years before resuming the conversation. “I don’t need presents. I was actually thinking I could give _you_ a present”

“If you’re about to make a dick joke I swear to G…”

“No” Harry chuckled “I was thinking that, I suppose, I think, I’m… like, ready to talk. For real. Tell you the rest of the story, you know. Maybe tonight over dinner or summat”

Zayn halted all movements at that, because _yes, I want to know everything that happened to you and make it all better so that you never have that frown on your face again, because I think I’m in love with you._

Zayn smiled. “Okay” he just said “Whenever you wanna talk to me, I’m here to listen”

Harry kissed him again. “I know, babe” he said “But then if you wanna give me a present and do that thing with your tongue and your fingers, I won’t refuse it”

Zayn laughed. “You’re such a twat” he said, tugging playfully at one of Harry’s curls. Harry let out a shameless groan and then blushed, snapping his lips shut.

Zayn arched an eyebrow when he felt Harry harden again against the small of his back. “Again?”

Harry sighed and shrugged. “Good stamina. It’s a curse, really”

“Shut up and fuck me again then” Zayn muttered on his lips.

When they were sated and covered in come – _again_ – Zayn thought that Andrew and Greg would go for a raid at the south-east mall that afternoon. As Harry showered, Zayn decided he would ask them to take him with them, because he’d already seen the gramophone twice in that mall, but he’d never thought to carry it back.

Now that it was Harry’s birthday, though, the gramophone felt like the perfect present for a dork who looked like the scariest person on Earth but secretly sung Rihanna in the shower.

 

*

 

“I don’t understand why you suddenly decided Andrew and Greg need the help, and the help has to come from _you_ ” Harry pouted as Zayn was flinging his backpack in the back of the truck.

Zayn sighed. “It’s always best to have more than two people for the raids” he replied, trying to make his tone sound as neutral as possible “You said that too”

“I _know_ , but…” Harry sighed too “It’s just. I thought we were gonna have our dinner and talk? And I know that it’s petty and selfish that I’d rather have you here with me than helping in a raid, but I…”

“That’s still happening, don’t be mistaken” Zayn interrupted him, pulling him by the hips and kissing him briefly on the mouth “We’ll be back before you can say _I look like the fitter version of Rick Grimes_ ”

Harry laughed at that, right in Zayn’s mouth. “So do I still have a birthday date tonight?”

“Most certainly, babe” Zayn assured, kissing him again just because.

He saw Maria looking at them from behind Harry. She rolled her eyes and playfully gagged at him, and Zayn flipped her off with a grin. She gasped and clutched her chest in mock-shock, and Zayn laughed. “I could adopt that little thing, some day” he murmured, mostly to himself.

Harry chuckled. “Not that little. Besides, _she_ can probably adopt _us_ , since she’s the one making us food and cheering us up most of the time”

“Also true” Zayn conceded.

“Are we going or are you two gonna keep eye-fucking in the middle of the town forever?” Greg snarled.

Zayn turned to look at him and Andrew, both of them already sitting in the driver’s and passenger’s seat of the truck, swirls and swirls of black ink adorning their extremely muscled arms. “Coming” he told them.

He kissed Harry again, and this time he saw even Louis and Liam gag at the two of them with Maria. He grinned and flipped them all off before hopping in the back of the truck.

Andrew drove off, past the gates and to the highway, and Zayn stared at Harry until he and the town became just a small dot on the horizon.

He didn’t speak to Andrew and Greg, and they didn’t speak to him, for the whole half hour it took them to get to the mall in the south-east zone.

“I’m gonna get the present for Harry and then I’ll help you with the supplies, okay?” he said at last, when they were reaching the entrance of the shopping centre.

Andrew scoffed, and neither of them replied.

Zayn didn’t honestly think their hate towards him was justified anymore. He’d tried to understand it at the beginning, when he was still an outsider to most people and to Harry, but things were different now. He’d spent more than two months at the Hole, helping whenever he was needed, risking his life during raids much like those two, and if Harry had decided he was okay, why wouldn’t they do the same?

He didn’t say any of it, though, because having a row while raiding was dangerous. It made people get distracted, and they weren’t even sure the mall was clear.

As Andrew and Greg went their separate ways from Zayn, Zayn decided the aisle he was in at the moment was clear. He couldn’t hear any tell-tale sounds, no gurgling and rustling, so he quickly reached the display window where the small gramophone Harry had eyed so much was.

Zayn smiled to himself as he slammed the back of his machete to the hinges of the glass window, until it broke and fell off in a crash of shards.

“You good?” he heard Greg scream.

He chuckled. “Yeah, sorry! All good!”

“Then shut the fuck up!” Andrew retorted.

Zayn rolled his eyes and picked up the gramophone. He detached the horn from the rest of the device, and carefully set both items in the two backpacks he’d brought, sighing in relief when he saw they fit perfectly. He could hide them from Harry as long as he wanted.

He heard Andrew and Greg go out of the building, huffing and grunting under the heaviness of their supply bags, and he followed them to the truck. They could get everything on it and then do another trip for the remaining items on their list.

“Did you get your stupid toy?” Andrew asked Zayn in another snarl.

Zayn had tried to keep quiet, but he was honestly tired, so he snapped. “Why the fuck do you hate me so much?” he exclaimed “I’ve done nothing but earn my keep since I came to the Hole. I was about to offer you help, but you’re always so fucking snappy at me”

“We don’t need your help” Greg retorted “Actually, we don’t need _you_ at all”

Zayn didn’t have time to question the suddenly cold tone in which Greg was speaking, because sooner than a moment later, Greg had unsheathed his machete and was pointing it at Zayn’s throat.

Zayn was so shocked he didn’t speak and didn’t move.

Andrew tutted. “A right pain in the ass you’ve been”

Greg chuckled. “Not for long, though. We’re finally getting rid of you. Today. Right now” he said, pressing his blade harder against Zayn’s Adam’s apple.

It made Zayn back off, only to be met with Andrew’s dagger poking him between his shoulder blades. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, cursing his voice for shaking so hard.

Greg shrugged. “You’re a liability. A threat. We’re getting rid of the threat” he said.

He kept making Zayn back off, and they kept walking. Zayn couldn’t even see where he was going, but at some point he felt Andrew slide sideways.

Zayn thought it was his chance to escape from Greg’s blade, so he backed off more, to put some distance between them.

His foot pressed on nothing at all, and he fell. Down a ditch, a pretty deep one, landing on his back and feeling his bones rattle at the impact with the hard ground. He coughed a breath, not being able to properly get up straight away, and he saw Andrew and Greg peek into the ditch where Zayn had fallen.

“You disrupted all our plans” Andrew said “Harry wasn’t supposed to fucking _fall in love_ with you and trust you so much already. But no matter. We’ll take care of him too when he’ll be wrecked about you… _disappearing_ ”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Zayn screamed, sitting up and feeling his back protest “If it’s a joke, it’s not fucking funny. Get me out of here”

Andrew and Greg looked to their left and then looked at each other, grinning. “It’s not a joke” Greg assured Zayn “But don’t you fret. Our _friends_ will get you out of here alright”

They were gone before Zayn could even reply, and only after the noise of the truck leaving subsided did Zayn understand what they were talking about.

He heard the stomping, the dragging of feet, and the gurgling.

Corpses.

Coming forward, probably already smelling him.

And he was stuck in the ditch, the hole too fucking deep for Zayn to climb out of.

 

*

 

 _I don’t wanna die like this, cornered into a fucking hole, with Harry thinking I just fucking left_ , was Zayn’s first thought when the first corpse fell down the ditch, blindly following Zayn’s smell.

Zayn had lost his machete, or better, Greg and Andrew had taken it off him before pushing him into the ditch. But he still had his dagger, the dagger he kept hidden in his boot, because Maria told him that it’s always better to have a hidden weapon too. And God bless Maria, honestly.

Zayn was quick to stab the first corpse in the head, getting rid of the threat only to be met with another, and another.

The corpses kept falling in the ditch, and Zayn didn’t know how many they were. He just kept his back to the wall of the ditch, to be protected from that side, and let the corpses come at him, shoving his dagger in their rotten foreheads, in their gory eye-sockets. His hands were brown with their old, stagnant blood as they kept falling down the ditch, coming at him, and falling at his feet.

He didn’t think about Harry, lovely Harry who was probably already wrecked at the news Zayn had left, because Andrew and Greg were probably already at the Hole by then, lying to him, making Zayn look like just another person Harry shouldn’t have trusted in the first place.

He didn’t think about Harry because that would distract him, and if he got distracted for just a second, lost his footing for just _one_ moment, the corpses would overcome him.

He thought about Maria. Beautiful, sweet Maria making him pizza and telling him that she loved him a lot. She always made Zayn almost piss himself with laughter, like that time she’d told him about how she’d been having sex with this guy at the Hole, when her parents were still alive, and they’d come home early, so she’d made the guy escape from the window not to be found out. _I fucking threw my whole dresser out the window to make some kind of, I dunno, ladder or summat, so that he could go out without breaking his fucking head. In hindsight, it was a shit plan. I made a ladder alright, but the noise didn’t go unnoticed._

A ladder.

Zayn almost laughed when he came up with the idea, and the laughter made the ache in his arms and back go away almost instantly. He shouted, flinging his arm forward to kill another three corpses, and then three more, three more, and three more.

And then, they stopped falling down the ditch where Zayn was.

Everything went back to silence. Zayn raised his head, it was already getting dark.

He screamed. He wasn’t sure there weren’t any other corpses around, but he needed to be, because he couldn’t risk getting out of the ditch only to find himself in the arms of the motherfucking corpse who would at last bite his face off.

So he screamed, and waited. After maybe twenty minutes had passed, he was sure there were no other creatures around.

So he got to work with all the ones he’d just killed.

He pulled the bodies towards the wall of the ditch, gagging when rotten arms and legs got ripped from their sockets in the process, spraying more guts and gore on his own body. There were maybe forty corpses. They would have to do.

He followed Maria’s advice, and built a ladder. Of corpses instead of furniture, but whatever.

Once the level of the corpse mountain reached Zayn’s chest, he took a deep breath, and started to climb it.

It was still too short, but Zayn could work with that now. He pushed his fingers in the hard soil making up the ditch wall, splintering his nails and making them all bleed.

Eventually, he climbed to the edge of the ditch, his arms straining in the effort of pushing the rest of his body upwards. He felt his elbows shake and give up, but he managed to get out at last.

He quickly got up, scanning the area for more corpses.

He was lucky it wasn’t a real herd, or he would be dead by now.

Greg and Andrew wouldn’t be so lucky when Zayn got back to the Hole.

The night was dark, but the moon was lighting his path enough. Zayn knew the way.

So he started walking.

 

*

 

Zayn didn’t know how long it took, but it was still pitch black when he finally came in front of the gates of the Hole.

 _Please don’t be Andrew and Greg_ , he thought when he eyed the two guards.

It wasn’t them. It was Edward and Jason, but they just frowned at Zayn.

 _Maybe they don’t recognize me under all this blood and guts_. “It’s Zayn!” he shouted.

They didn’t move. _What the fuck?_

He saw Edward raise his transmitter and murmur into it, and a moment later he nodded at Jason. They opened the gates, and Zayn crossed the threshold of the town.

There were a lot of people around, which was weird for how late in the night it must have been. Zayn scanned the crowd for Louis, or Liam, or Harry, but he didn’t see any of them.

Greg and Andrew were there, though. They were on him in an instant, grabbing him by the arms and bending them behind his back. “Couldn’t fucking die already, couldn’t you” Greg hissed in his ear. Zayn was sure nobody else heard him.

“Motherfuckers” he struggled against their hands blocking him “Let me go, what are you doing? Why is nobody doing anything?” he screamed.

Nobody replied.

“Harry” Zayn said “I wanna speak to Harry”

“I’m here, Zayn”

Zayn tried to turn to his left, from where Harry’s cold voice had come, and _no no why is your voice cold what’s happening we should have been having dinner by now._

Greg and Andrew kept their grip on him, and forcibly turned him so that he could face Harry. He was there, standing tall, with Louis and Liam at his sides. It weirdly reminded Zayn of the night he’d come to the Hole.

“Haz, this has to be a mist…” Louis said to Harry, pale and shaking, but Harry raised his hand.

“Shut up” Harry said, still cold as ice. Louis did, and so did the rest of the people around.

Harry looked at Zayn. His green eyes were unreadable, and so was the tilt of his jaw. He looked at Zayn like he was just another person, just someone he couldn’t, wouldn’t, trust.

And then, Harry spoke again. “Jail” he said “Now”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said at the beginning, there's gonna be another chapter. It's almost done, though, so expect another quick update in the next two days!  
> Let me know what you're thinking :)  
> I am also on Tumblr as wont-you-stay-till-the-am.tumblr.com, come hit me up if you wanna talk.


	4. To trust again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn thinks the corpses are slowly dying out, because they’re becoming… a rare sight.  
> He kills one on his way back to the Hole, the bike seat full of _Hunt’s_ diced tomatoes with garlic and oregano, which he’s found by a small miracle while looking for more fuel for their cars.  
> It has been like a sign, the tomatoes, because it’s their anniversary today, and he’s had no clue what to give Harry as a present for _weeks_.

 

 

 

Greg and Andrew didn’t wait half a second to start pulling Zayn away.

“Harry!” he screamed, trying to turn and look at him, but they were holding him too hard “Harry! Let me speak! Talk to me! Fucking talk to me!”

_We were supposed to talk tonight._

“What the _fuck_ , Haz?” Zayn heard Louis scream.

Harry didn’t reply. As Greg and Andrew dragged Zayn away, he caught sight of Maria, all crazy curls and jeans overalls and big, worried eyes. The girl didn’t hesitate and ran to Zayn, setting herself in their way with her hands on her hips. “He didn’t do _shit_ ” she said angrily “I’m sure of it”

“Then maybe you’re just as poor of a judge of character as our boss” Andrew retorted.

“Maria, tell Harry I need to spe…” Zayn tried, but Andrew pushed him forward.

Zayn almost knocked Maria over, but the girl steadied him and grabbed his wrists with her small hands. She didn’t speak to Zayn, but she looked at him. _I believe you_ , her eyes were surely saying.

Zayn let Andrew and Greg drag him away.

 

*

 

“You better pray to God that Harry never fucking talks to me” Zayn hissed to the two men when they unceremoniously pushed him inside one of the small cells in the basement of the old town church “Because when he does, you’re fucking _dead_ ”

Greg looked at the stairs before grinning mockingly at Zayn. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that, you know” he said “Your boyfriend is so wrecked about not noticing you’re one of the Skulls that I doubt he’ll have the bollocks to speak to you any time soon”

Zayn recoiled from the door made of steel bars that the two of them had slammed shut and locked. “One of the Skulls?”

Andrew snorted a laugh. “Oh, man, you should see your face” he snickered “Yeah. We told him all about how you tried to kill us and steal the supplies for your _real_ people. Proper dismayed, he was, the poor lad. He’ll survive”

“Or not” Greg retorted, and they looked at each other and laughed.

“HARRY!” Zayn screamed.

Greg rolled his eyes. “So dramatic” he commented.

They both left him there and went away, shutting the door at the top of the basement stairs.

Harry didn’t come talk to him down there, but Louis and Liam did.

They approached Zayn’s cell, and Zayn was so sure that they would finally let him out that the fact that they didn’t felt like a punch to the gut.

“Lads, you’re not really believing those two, are you?” Zayn asked, feeling tears come up his throat.

“Of course not, Zed” Liam said “The thing is…”

“The thing is that we don’t have the power to let you go. Not anymore. Harry’s gone ballistic” Louis said “He told you what happens when you vouch for someone and they’re no good. And we vouched for you”

Zayn drove his fingers through his greasy hair, matted with sweat and blood. “He wants to kick you out?”

“He hasn’t said yet” Liam sighed “But he’s taken our jail keys and he’s told us that he can’t talk to us either at the moment. He’s wrecked, Zayn. Whatever Greg and Andrew told him, it… it broke him. Niall’s trying to make him see reason, but he won’t speak to anyone”

_No no no please babe I want you to trust me there’s nothing else I’ve ever wanted._

“They told him I revealed myself to be one of the Skulls and I tried to kill ‘em” Zayn told them.

Louis recoiled from the door. “What the _fuck_?” he hissed “And Harry believed them?”

“Apparently” Zayn tried to speak coldly, but his voice sounded just wrong.

“Time’s up!” someone shouted from atop the stairs.

Louis and Liam looked worriedly at Zayn. “We’ll try to talk to Harry, Zed. I promise” Louis told him.

Zayn didn’t answer as they went away.

Zayn didn’t know how much time he spent alone down there, because it felt both like a minute and a year. He only knew that the next person who ‘visited’ him was Maria.

She went down the stairs holding a tray with a bowl and a glass of water on it, almost tripping over the always untied strings of her awful pink sneakers, and swearing in Italian. She smiled at Zayn as she reached his cell door and slid the tray under it.

“You have to eat” Maria said “I made you soup”

Zayn couldn’t even think about drinking, let alone eat. He thought he would just let the food go to waste for once, but Maria wasn’t having it, because she sighed and sat down right against his cell door, looking up at Zayn with a smile and her eyes urging him to sit with her. She kept smiling, his lovely Maria, and she started fidgeting with a hole in the pants of her overalls while she waited for Zayn to sit down as well.

“Eat” she repeated “Then when you get your strength back we can try to think of a way to make Harry trust you again”

Zayn obeyed the kid’s orders and sat on the floor by the bars of the door, but he scowled as he ate. “I don’t know if it’s still an option, doll”

Maria rolled her eyes. “He’s been crying non-stop. I choose to believe it means he still cares about you”

The thought of Harry, Harry fucking Styles, crying, was horrible. Zayn forced down another spoonful of soup.

“Time’s up!” they shouted from the stairs.

“Go fuck yourself, Greg!” Maria shouted back.

Greg didn’t answer, but he slammed the door shut, violently.

“Maria” Zayn said seriously “Please. I don’t want you to make those two too angry. They… they’re bad people. They can fuck you up real good, like they did me”

Maria smiled, her fierce, dark eyes glinting. “I would really like to see them fucking try, _grazie_ ” she declared “Those two fuckers. Coming here all the way blabbering about you being a Skull, about them seeing your fucking tattoo on your ankle and shit”

Zayn felt his insides clench like someone was holding them in a fist. “What?”

“They said you’ve got the Skull tattoo. On your ankle”

 _I didn’t tell anyone about the tattoos, not even my council, because I don’t want us to become the kind of community that checks each other’s ankle to make sure no one’s a traitor, but I guess I can tell you_ , Harry had said when Zayn had survived the poison.

Harry had said he hadn’t told anyone.

“Maria” Zayn said in a whisper “I want you to go. Can you tell something to Harry for me, babe?”

Maria nodded.

“I want you to tell him that I remember what he told me about the Skulls tattoo, and that he has to think about _that_ ” he told the girl “He’ll understand” _I hope,_ he added mentally.

Maria nodded again and stood up. Zayn did too, and when she smiled and grabbed the bars of the door with her small fingers, Zayn did the same, trying the best he could to wrap Maria’s hands with his own. He couldn’t tell her just _what_ he was suspecting about the two guards, because if he was right, it meant they were even more dangerous than Zayn had thought when they’d tried to kill him.

But he needed to warn Maria somehow. Keep her safe. “Stay away from Andrew and Greg, kiddo” he whispered “Stay safe. Please”

Maria just nodded. “I never fucking liked them. Now I’m sure there’s something wrong with them. I’ll go find Harry, Zayn. It’s gonna be okay. I love you a lot”

“I love you a lot too, kiddo”

She pulled her hands away from Zayn’s, and quickly disappeared up the stairs.

 

*

 

Zayn didn’t have a watch, but he knew that it took Harry at least three fucking hours to show up.

As soon as Zayn heard the sounds of his careful steps down the stairs, he fought the tiredness and the soreness to push himself up from the wall, against which he’d been sitting on the dirty floor.

“Haz, babe, you have to listen to me” Zayn hissed when he caught sight of Harry.

Harry didn’t speak. He just stood there, looking like he was in physical pain, his eyes big and red-rimmed even in the faint lights from the torches.

Harry shook his head, a defeated expression on his face. “I thought I wouldn’t be so stupid, _twice_ ” he murmured, not looking at Zayn.

“Harry, _listen_ to me!” Zayn hissed, eyeing the door upstairs to make sure nobody was listening “Did Maria tell you? Did you _think_ about what she said?”

Harry blinked twice, and then frowned. “What’s Maria got to do with all this?”

“What the fuck do you mean, Harry? Did you speak to Maria?”

“Zayn, I haven’t seen Maria since you came back” Harry replied, tiredly, massaging his temples with his fingertips.

_No no no she said she would talk to you, where is she?_

“Harry, you have to let me out” Zayn said urgently, grabbing the bars of his cell door “It’s them, don’t you get it?”

Harry took a deep breath, and got closer to the cell. “I _trusted_ you. And you betrayed me”

“It’s _them_ , Harry!” Zayn shouted, and then cursed himself, lowering his voice “You said you didn’t want to make them be a community so distrusting that they have to cheek each other’s ankle to make sure they’re not traitors, Harry, but _you_ are that kind of person already, ain’t you? Well, then fucking _look_ ” Zayn hissed.

He took off his shoes, and then rolled the hems of his jeans up, so that Harry could see his bare ankles. The thought that Harry needed a fucking tattoo to trust him again was breaking his heart, but they had no time for petty things like mutual trust and love now. Something bad was about to happen, and Zayn could feel it in his bones, from the moment Andrew and Greg had thrown him in the ditch.

Harry lowered his eyes and scanned Zayn’s feet. When he didn’t find what he’d just _trusted other people_ to think was there, he recoiled from Zayn, his mouth agape. “They… they…”

“They _lied_ , Haz!” Zayn whispered, feeling an anger he hadn’t felt for a long time boil in the pit of his stomach “You had me _naked_ in your bed for _weeks_ , Harry! You saw me! You didn’t see any fucking tattoo when you fucked me, didn’t you?”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, wavering. “I didn’t look at your fucking _ankles_ , Zayn”

“They poisoned me!” Zayn retorted, even more angrily, trying to get Harry to understand his fucking point because they needed to _move_ “Do you honestly think I would poison myself to gain your trust?”

“The Skulls have gone to great lengths to earn my trust already once” Harry said, and then he closed his mouth, looking at Zayn with something akin to regret and guilt and pain in his eyes.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Harry was blaming himself for something Zayn didn’t even know, but he needed it now, needed to _understand_ so that he could make _Harry_ understand.

“You need to tell me what happened with the Skulls last year, Harry” he said, forcing himself to calm down “All of it”

Harry scanned Zayn’s face, and then got so close to the bars that Zayn could feel Harry’s warm breath whishing on his nose, lips. The echo of Harry’s taste clouded his judgement for a moment, but he kept his fucking brain at bay, somehow.

“They snaked through us” Harry said at last, close, so close, but avoiding Zayn’s eyes “I was stupid, and those three people were hurt, so I took them in. Felix, Martha, and Nick”

As soon as he heard the last name, Zayn understood where everything was going. He understood just _how_ the Skulls had managed to crawl inside the Hole, the detail Harry had omitted the first time he’d spoken about it. Zayn didn’t say anything, though, and let Harry continue.

“They let the other Skulls in the Hole at night, three months later, when I trusted them and had them on the night guard shift. They killed almost half of my people before we could even wake up. Wanted to take our supplies, probably our whole town. But I know how to fight, Zayn, I’ve fought since the day zombies even became a thing. So we fought back. I had Nick by the throat, I wanted to kill him. But I took pity on them. So I let them live, and leave, and I made the deal with Nick’s father”

Zayn didn’t answer.

Harry spoke some more. “I fell in love with Nick. Very soon” he said, making Zayn’s stomach turn upside down “And Nick betrayed me. He was able to pull that stunt on me because I was distracted by how much I trusted him and loved him. And that’s the real reason I left you the morning after we fucked for the first time, that’s what I didn’t know how to tell you”

Zayn loved Harry, and for a second he thought the stomach-clenching anger he was feeling was jealousy. But it really wasn’t, because Harry was sad, trying not to cry, and Zayn loved him, despite everything. He didn’t care who he’d been with, didn’t care who had betrayed him. Zayn loved him, and Zayn wouldn’t betray him.

His anger had subsided almost instantly, because after something like that, how could he blame Harry for flipping when someone had told him the new person in town was a Skull, _again_? He gulped down the resentment, the sadness about Harry losing his trust in Zayn so fucking easily, and then Zayn spoke, calmer, grabbing the hands Harry had wrapped around the bars with his own.

 “And now they’re back. Don’t you understand, Harry? Andrew and Greg. _They’re_ the Skulls. They tricked you again, let you trust them for a whole year, just to fuck you in the arse again. And I never took my liking to them, there was just something off about them to me. So they tried to get rid of me, put you against me. You have to let me out, Haz. Something bad’s about to happen, and you know it” Zayn said, the thought of Maria and the others so close to danger making his skin crawl.

Harry, to his credit, was fumbling with the keys dangling from his belt in a second. His hands were shaking when he tried and failed twice to shove the key in the lock, and Zayn grabbed his fingers again through the bars, stopping him. “Babe, you gotta breathe. They need you at your best. _I_ need you at your best. Cold and calculated like the fucking first time I saw you”

Harry shook his head, his eyes full of tears. “I’m sorry, Zayn, I’m sorry I couldn’t trust you like you wanted me to”

“Harry” Zayn sighed patiently “We can blame ourselves and each other _later_ , yeah? Now you need to be steady and focused. I sent Maria to talk to you. To tell you to think about the fact that you’ve never told anyone about the Skull ankle tattoo. I wanted you to understand that if you didn’t tell them, then how did Andrew and Greg know where to look?”

“Maria?” Harry frowned, finally managing to open the fucking cell door “Zayn, Maria never came to talk to me”

Zayn nodded. “We have to find her. And Andrew and Greg”

“We need more people. Louis, Liam and Niall” Harry said, his tone going from scared and dismayed to the cold and calculated Zayn had requested in a heartbeat.

They climbed the stairs together after Zayn hastily put his shoes back on, and when they opened the door, they were met with silence. Complete and utter silence, the streets empty and dark in those last hours of night.

Harry looked around. “Andrew and Greg. They were guarding the door when I came down to talk to you”

“Fuck” Zayn hissed “They heard. They know you know. We have to find them, Haz. Before they make everything go to shit again”

Harry nodded, and they quickly stepped into the main street, which looked exceptionally creepy at that time of night, where the only light came from the torches along the gravel pathway between the houses.

Harry heaved an abrupt sigh, and Zayn was suddenly surrounded by Niall, Liam and Louis. “Are you okay?” Louis asked him, and Zayn nodded, urging them to be quiet.

“Sorry, Haz” Liam said “We were going to get Zayn out of the jail even without your consent tonight. There’s something wrong. Andrew and Greg gathered some people in the town hall, said you had an urgent announce to make”

“What?” Harry hissed.

Niall nodded. “Yeah. We didn’t go, though. You wouldn’t make any announcement without telling me first, and certainly not pulling people out of bed in the middle of the night. The whole deal stunk to me”

“How many people? When?” Harry demanded.

Zayn’s brain was going a mile a minute, a river of _what are they doing, what are they planning, why put people in the town hall, why why why._

None of them spoke, though.

Because right about then, they started hearing a familiar, disgusting noise.

There was a corpse coming their way, struggling in its gangly walk, and _right in the middle of the fucking town._

“What the fuck…” Harry muttered.

They were stunned as the corpse got closer and closer. It wasn’t a big deal, because they’d fought more corpses and with less people than the five of them, but it still _was_ a big fucking deal, because how did a corpse even _get_ into the town?

As the corpse finally reached the torch right next to them, Zayn understood.

Because he’d come to love those weird jeans overalls, those bright t-shirts, those crazy curls and pink sneakers.

“NO!” Harry screamed, pushing at Zayn, covering him with his body “Don’t look, babe, don’t look, please please please”

Maria caught their scent, and snarled.

Zayn thought he’d forgotten how to move, as Harry kept pushing at him to get him away from Maria, lovely Maria now reduced to a corpse, snarling and trying to bite at them.

But when he saw Louis cry and draw his knife from his belt, then and only then, something clicked in his brain.

Zayn shouted. He fell to his knees, looking at Maria’s lovely dark skin, now pale with death, and screamed his heart out, feeling hot tears burn trails along his cheeks as Harry cried too, trying to make Zayn stand up from the gravel digging holes in his knees.

Maria turned her dead head towards him, because she was dead and alive at the same time, she didn’t think, didn’t speak, but she smelled scents and heard noises and she wanted to _eat eat eat kill kill kill._

Zayn couldn’t bear to look at her glassy eyes, couldn’t bear to look at the bloody bitemark on her neck, where some other corpse had gotten her, just after Zayn had told her to stay safe.

But Zayn had to look, was the thing. Because he wouldn’t let Louis do it, or anyone else, for that matter.

So he stopped screaming, stopped crying, and stood up.

“Zayn, no, please, no” Harry murmured, still gripping one of his wrists like his life depended on it.

Zayn shrugged Harry off. And then he drew Harry’s machete from his belt. Harry let him, because when they looked at each other, he knew it had to be Zayn.

Maria – no, _the corpse, Zayn, the corpse_ – finally reached for him, grabbing his arm.

Zayn let her. She was a new corpse, still getting used to walking and eating again, her movements were so slow, so slow, she’d been so quick when she was alive, making ten pizzas in less than an hour, quick to pinch Zayn in the ribs and flee the scene before he could catch her, quick and giggling and alive.

 _I love you, kiddo_ , Zayn thought, but didn’t say.

He shoved the machete up under her chin, and the snarl she was emitting died instantly, same as her.

She fell in a heap at Zayn’s feet when Zayn retracted the weapon.

Zayn fell to his knees, feeling tears sting in his eyes, while no one else dared speak. He grabbed Maria’s body, and settled her under one of the trees. “We have to bury her properly, later” he said, realizing he was speaking only when he heard his own words leave his mouth.

“Zayn…” Harry said. But he didn’t finish whatever he wanted to say.

Zayn wanted to tell him so many things. That he forgave him for not trusting him, because Zayn had been lucky to lose Liam and Louis only to realize he hadn’t really lost them after a year. But the people Harry had lost in that town, those people were gone for good, and Zayn knew the feeling, had known it with his family and knew it again now with little, pretty Maria, and Zayn couldn’t blame Harry for acting like he’d done since the beginning.

He didn’t say anything, though, because they started to hear the noise again.

Only that time it was louder, bigger.

They looked towards the centre of the town, from where Maria had crawled out, and Zayn saw a lot more corpses coming their way.

Edward. Paul. Amelia. Evelyn. Noah. Jacob. Elizabeth. Michael. Abigail. Harper. Ethan.

“No no no no no” Harry was whispering, hissing, murmuring, crying, as the people he’d taken care of for years came towards them like Maria had, snarling and extending their dead hands to the five of them, to bite, eat, feed. Zayn ran his hand blindly to his side while his eyes stayed trained on the herd. He found Harry’s free hand, the one that wasn’t holding his weapon, and he squeezed Harry’s fingers.

“Niall” Zayn said, because Harry was in no condition to speak, his long legs were shaking beside Zayn “Sound the bell. We have to fight”

 

*

 

The herd wasn’t only composed by their people, Zayn realized as they all fought, together with the rest of the inhabitants of the Hole who had come running, bringing weapons and help, at the sound of the emergency bell.

And of course the herd couldn’t be _just_ their people, because that _horror_ must have started somewhere. There were old corpses among the others. A lot of them, with their faces already rotten and half-fallen off, their eyes dangling horribly out of their sockets, cheekbones showing from under missing skin on their dead faces.

“They brought corpses inside” Zayn told Harry as they fought off their friends and now enemies, back to back like they knew they worked best.

He felt Harry nod behind him. “That’s why they called people in the town hall. They locked them inside and let the zombies bite them”

“That’s why Maria didn’t come to you” Zayn said, his heart constricting as he shoved the machete he’d borrowed from Harry across Miranda’s face.

Harry was crying. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” he kept saying every time he killed one of their people for real.

“I was too busy sulking about you betraying me to go out of my fucking house” Harry said, his tone angrier as he killed an old corpse “They fucked me in the arse again, just as you said. Brought zombies in here under my nose, and…”

“Harry, focus!” Zayn screamed, when Harry missed his target and almost got his arm bitten off by Edward. Zayn took care of him, saying a mental _sorry_ to their trusted smith.

Harry had fallen, but Zayn quickly helped him up. “Harry, you can’t _die_ , okay? You can feel guilty _later_. Now we need to save what remains of our people, yeah?”

Harry nodded frantically, and then shoved his machete through three corpses at once.

Zayn, despite the impending feeling of doom, chuckled. “Now I recognize you, Harry fucking Styles”

Harry briefly smiled, but the smile died on his lips as he looked towards the front gate. “Greg” he said.

Zayn saw him too. Greg was running towards the gate, and Zayn just _knew_ what he planned. “LOUIS!” he shouted to his friend, because he was the closest to Greg “STOP HIM! HE’S GONNA LET THEM IN!”

Louis sprinted towards Greg, but all of a sudden Andrew was there too, grabbing him by the waist and throwing Louis on the street just as Greg opened the gates of the Hole In The Ground.

Zayn didn’t know where to look, because it looked like they were fucked from every direction.

The people from the Hole were fighting the corpses, killing and getting bitten in equal measure.

The gates slammed open, and a crowd of armed people, a crowd of Skulls, flooded the town.

Andrew lowered his knife on Louis, and Zayn screamed, because he was sure that if Louis died, he would die too.

There’s only so much loss a person can take.

Louis didn’t die. Harry careened towards the two of them, shouldering Andrew and sending him tumbling on the grass. “STAY AWAY FROM HIM, YOU FUCKER” Harry shouted, red in the face, blood tinting his cheeks and tears carving paths through it “You ruined everything! We loved you! We cared for you!”

Andrew laughed. “You cared for us ‘cause you’re too _soft_ to really doubt anyone, Harry Styles” he shouted back “You make all these big talks about not trusting outsiders, and then you take us in, make us part of your council even, in _three months_? Come on!”

“You were with me for a _year_ ” Harry growled “I trusted you!”

“You were wrong!” Andrew retorted, still sitting on the ground and looking up at Harry “It was just part of our plan, having you trust us. You don’t have the _guts_ to rule a town, Harry Styles. You’re stupid, and soft, you care more about the fucking vegetables and about the fucking kids than about anything else, and by the way, the kid you loved so much? The Italian girl? She was a fucking _pain in the arse_ , same as your lover over there, and it was fucking _amazing_ to grab her and gag her and shove her in the arms of the zombies we brought here just to watch them eat her”

Zayn was running towards them before actually deciding. He screamed and ran, but Harry was quicker.

He pushed his machete forward, and sliced Andrew’s throat in a silent, swift move.

Greg and the other Skulls assisted to the scene. They halted, maybe a bit surprised that Harry actually killed a _person_ , but Zayn wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

Harry had killed before. He was no stranger to committing murder, not anymore, because _they themselves_ had made sure that he would be forced to. Harry, pretty Harry who sung Rihanna under the shower, had had to become a murderer because of _them_.

Zayn vaguely heard the corpse noises subside, but he didn’t turn to look at the rest of their people, too scared that he’d only find new corpses awakening.

Instead, he kept his eyes trained on the shaking form of Harry’s shoulders, as Harry gripped his machete tighter and faced the group of Skulls at their door.

Louis had disappeared. He wasn’t on the ground anymore. Zayn looked around, but he didn’t see him, or Liam. _Please no no no._

A man detached himself from the rest of the Skulls, and strode towards Harry. He had short hair, a lopsided smile on his face, and he was wearing all black.

Harry’s gaze and weapon didn’t falter. “Nick”

 _Nick. The man he loved. The man who betrayed him. The man who made all of_ this _already happen once. The man Harry let live._

“Haz, babe” Nick grinned “You’re fucked”

Zayn knew Nick was probably right, but as absurd as it sounded, he wasn’t upset about him saying that. He was seeing red at him calling Harry ‘babe’, and how petty and selfish was it? But that was what Zayn was feeling.

“Back off, Nick” Zayn said, going to face the man, standing beside Harry with his own weapon raised.

Harry took a shaky breath.

Nick looked from Harry to Zayn and vice versa, and then he chuckled. “Your new toy, huh?” he asked Harry “Having fun with him? He betray you yet?”

Harry growled and pushed at Nick’s chest with his hand, to make him back off. “Fuck you, Nick” Harry hissed “I let you live once. You were supposed to stay away from this place”

Nick shrugged. “You’re the only one who thought the deal was _real_ , babe” he said “I respected it as long as my father was alive. But alas, daddy dearest died in a very suspicious accident in his bathtub” he sighed, batting his eyelashes, and Zayn shivered, because _how can you kill your own father. I’d give my own life just to see mine once more._

Harry widened his eyes. “Wow, Nick” he said “That’s low even for you”

“No matter” Nick shrugged again “The prison was too small for the two of us. Thinking about it, the prison’s too small, period. So now we’re gonna take your town if you don’t mind. I was gonna let you live, see if you were up for some more fucking, ‘cause _that_ was great, I’ll admit” he chuckled “But seeing that you killed my beloved vice over there, I’ll have to kill you now”

It was too silent. As Harry and Nick kept bickering, Zayn dared look behind him. The place was almost completely deserted, only the kids and a couple more people still there among the mayhem of corpses. Zayn frowned, but then one of the kids, Kyle, discreetly brought a finger to his lips, signing to him to shut up.

Zayn did, and faced Nick again. “What do you want?” he asked, feeling the need to stall some more.

Nick laughed. “He speaks!” he shouted, and a couple other Skulls chuckled nervously “I want _everything_ , Zayn Malik. Yeah, Andrew and Greg told me about you. Wicked timing you had, yeah? Coming here just as we were planning our little coup, and disliking my two men on the spot, always staring at them, always scowling at them with these perfect eyebrows o’ yours”

“Leave him alone” Harry spat “He’s got nothing to do with this”

“Oh but you both do” Nick grinned “I won, Harry. Everything you have? Mine. Now, do you wanna watch me take it first and then die, or do you prefer dying first?”

Zayn dared take a glance to the other Skulls, and was a bit surprised to see them still stand back, with frowns on their faces as they looked at all the bodies littering the streets of the Hole. Almost like they didn’t expect it to be such a massacre.

 _It fucking is_ , he thought.

Harry, in the whole absurdity of it, chuckled. “Do you wanna know why you won’t kill me? Why you’ll lose, again? Why you’ll _always_ lose?” he asked Nick, their noses mere inches apart, and the cold tone Zayn had learned to dread in his voice.

“I’m listening” Nick humoured Harry.

“You always forget about Niall Horan” Harry stated.

A swing of blades made Zayn’s skin crawl, and when Nick lost his smug smile and turned to face his own men, Zayn looked at them as well.

He found their people, most of those who had survived. Niall, Liam, Louis. Margot and Ollie. Patrick and Yasmin. Trevor and Gina. They were all there, one behind each Skull, and all of them had their blades pointed at their throats, grinning at Nick while the Skulls gasped and stayed very still to avoid being killed on the spot. Louis had Greg, and he was whispering something in his ear, and Greg was becoming paler and paler by the second.

And so was Nick.

He turned again, to look at Harry who was smiling coldly at him. Nick was panting, and tried to claw at Harry’s face in a frustrated growl. Zayn saw it coming, if he was honest, so he just raised the flat of his machete, blocking Nick’s arm from reaching Harry’s face.

Zayn tutted. “Not so quick, I’m afraid”

Harry nodded at Zayn after a moment, and Zayn removed his weapon from under Nick’s arm.

Harry sighed, and Zayn knew what was going to happen.

Harry was a good soul. He was the best that could happen to that town, and all his people knew. Zayn also knew.

But being a leader meant taking care of the rotten, dirty, morally questionable business so that his people wouldn’t have to, so that they could keep living in peace. And Zayn knew, in his heart, that all of that had happened because Harry had been _soft_ once and let Nick live.

By the coldness in Harry’s eyes, and the matching one in everyone else’s eyes, that was not gonna happen a second time.

Nick started stuttering. “Haz, babe, I…”

“Harry” Zayn snarled “Not ‘babe’. _Harry_ ”

Nick took a ragged breath as Harry grabbed him easily by an arm, starting to pull him away from there, dragging him across the bodies and the blood. Before he could go, Zayn grabbed his hand. “Harry. I can do it” he said.

Because he hadn’t killed anyone before, but he would do it for Harry, if it meant sparing Harry more heartbreak.

Harry smiled and shook his head. “It’s my responsibility” he just said, and then kept dragging Nick away.

Nobody spoke as they looked at Harry and Nick disappear behind the town hall. The town hall, from which all the corpses had come out. From which _Maria_ had come out as well.

Zayn looked at Maria’s body, still lying under the tree and looking dead and rotten, but also peaceful. But he didn’t stop listening.

He heard the swing of the blade, and the whimper.

And then he heard Harry’s anguished scream.

They all knew Harry was physically fine, so Louis just nodded at Zayn, telling him to go look for Harry, and they would keep the other Skulls at bay.

It was okay, though, because none of them was uttering a sound or protesting in any way. Zayn had the vague suspect that none of them, except Nick, Greg and Andrew, had really wanted to participate in that horrible, already doomed to fail plan.

“Haz?” Zayn whispered when he circled the old town hall.

Nick was dead. He was lying in the grass, his throat slashed open, and his eyes already glassy and empty.

Harry was crouched with his back to the façade of the building, his head hidden between his knees, and he was whimpering loudly and uninterruptedly.

“Haz” Zayn sighed, kneeling next to him. He slowly petted Harry’s head, to make him raise it, because he wanted to look at him.

Harry did. “I’m a murderer, Zayn. I’m a fucking murderer” he said, his eyes big and his eyelids trembling.

Zayn sighed, and pulled Harry in a hug, shushing him a little. “Yeah, Haz. You are. And so am I, even if I didn’t kill anyone, because I let you do this. We all are. And you know it was the only way. We can only hope it’s the last time it happens”

Harry sniffled a bit, and then removed himself from Zayn’s hug, standing up. “I’ll make sure it fucking is” he said “Tell Louis to bring them in the town hall. I’ll _fix_ this, once and for all”

 

*

 

Zayn had been, for a second, scared that Harry was going to kill each and every single Skull.

But of course, Harry didn’t.

He had the Skulls sit in the town hall, and he made a speech about learning to trust again, against all odds, in a place that everybody could call home.

He told them his side of things. About the first time Nick and his father had fucked it up, and how it had fared for him and the Hole. Then he told them about how he’d come to love Greg and Andrew. Greg was there, crying the whole time, while Harry smiled and told him the trust he’d placed in him had been horribly broken, but it wasn’t too late.

Harry told them it wasn’t too late for any of them.

It was too late for Greg, though, Zayn thought with a pang of guilt anyway, because he could see Greg had been bitten. On his left side, by the very corpses he’d taken to the town to let them feed on their people.

And then, as Zayn questioned Harry’s mental stability, Harry offered them all to stay.

“Things will not be easy for you” Harry said “But I will grant you shelter, a real life, not a life in the shell of a prison. I’ll keep my eyes on you, all of you, for the rest of your fucking life. You fooled me twice, and today was the last” he took a breath “But I’ll let you live here, with us. I’ll let you earn your keep and my trust. Because I might be a horrible judge of character, but I can _see_ that you regretted even coming here as soon as you realized people were actually dying. So I will choose to blame it on the person who led you, or better, _misled_ you. You can stay. And if you don’t want to, I’ll let you go, and I won’t have you come back. If you stay, you provide a service to this community, with whatever your best ability is. You _earn_ it”

Zayn had thought Harry had just lost it, but after a while, he realized Harry had always been right.

 

*

 

They buried Maria, and all the others.

Zayn cried over the small body of the girl he’d joked about adopting, as he lowered her in the ground, helped by Harry, who was also crying, because maybe he’d thought of adopting Maria just the same. And he already had, where it counted, same as Zayn.

They held the hands of those who had been bitten, helping them through the pains of the fever, telling them their heroism wouldn’t be forgotten. And when they died and awakened, they killed them for good, hoping they would find peace.

They mourned their losses.

They even kept Greg as comfortable as they could, as the fever broke him and killed him. And when he rose again, as a corpse, Zayn didn’t feel any satisfaction into driving his dagger through his head.

They buried him too.

The Skulls didn’t particularly mourn Nick’s, Greg’s and Andrew’s loss. They told Harry, some time later, that the whole old group, the one who had followed Nick and his father, had died. Sickness, corpses, whatever. It had left them, the weakest of them, under Nick’s lead.

And Nick had always been a vengeful soul, a sixty-year-old woman named Kristine had told them around the first bonfire they had the heart to organize, months and months later, when things were going alright again.

“You’re a good soul, Harry Styles” Kristine told Harry that night “You could have killed us all. Paid us back with the same massacre we unleashed upon _your_ people. But you chose to avoid any more bloodshed”

Harry just smiled that night, curling into Zayn’s side, and looking at Kristine with his green eyes. “You’re my people too, now. If you’ll have me”

It turned out everybody would have him. Zayn didn’t blame them.

 

*

 

Zayn would like to say that he and Harry had a long, heartfelt conversation about their feelings, after the night of the massacre.

The truth was that when you risk your life, or risk seeing the person you love die in front of you, all conversations become useless.

So that night, after the Skulls – Harry told everyone to stop using the term, _effective immediately_ – had been shown to their new rooms by people from the Hole who didn’t trust them, but Harry was sure would learn to, they didn’t speak.

Zayn just told Harry, “I love you”.

And Harry told Zayn, “I love you too”.

And they’d kissed, and they’d cried, and they’d slept.

They knew each other where it counted, and they knew why the other had said and done whatever they’d said and done.

It was enough, Zayn thought as he dried the tears from Harry’s face, the tears Harry didn’t let anyone else see, but he would let _Zayn_ see them now, and that was the ultimate, most important leap of faith Harry could take towards him.

 

\---

 

**Ten years later**

 

Zayn thinks the corpses are slowly dying out, because they’re becoming… a rare sight.

He kills one on his way back to the Hole, the bike seat full of _Hunt’s_ diced tomatoes with garlic and oregano, which he’s found by a small miracle while looking for more fuel for their cars.

It has been like a sign, the tomatoes, because it’s their anniversary today, and he’s had no clue what to give Harry as a present for _weeks_.

The tomatoes will do. Actually, thinking about it, it’s gonna be the best fucking present Harry has received in years, he thinks with a grin, his mind going back to a time when he and Harry didn’t know every nook and cranny of each other’s body and soul, a time when Harry had still doubts about Zayn and his intentions, and Zayn still thought Harry was a fit bloke, and nothing more.

The cooing catches his ears right when he stops the bike to light a cigarette before resuming his trip back home.

Zayn frowns, and leaves the bike in the middle of the road, because it’s crazy, but it sounds like a baby.

_A fucking baby, Zayn? Don’t be ridiculous._

And well, apparently he _should_ be ridiculous, because abandoned under a tree, hidden by leaves who won’t save it from corpses and _other people_ , there _is_ a baby.

It’s not even a toddler, barely four months old, and Zayn runs to it, lifting it up from the ground. It’s a little girl, a quick inspection tells him. She’s wrapped in a white small duvet, and crying her heart out.

Zayn shushes her, and of course runs back to the bike. He secures the baby inside his jacket, tying the duvet and the baby around his chest with some ropes he always keeps under the seat of Harry’s – _their_ – bike, and drives a bit faster than intended.

“You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay” he tells the small, frail thing strapped to his chest.

 

*

 

“It’s a sign of hope”, Harry tells him that night, as they go to sleep with the little girl sleeping blissfully in a makeshift crib Niall has managed to produce in the absurdly short time of an hour.

They’re curled against each other in bed, and Zayn runs his index along Harry’s face. His forehead, still smooth despite the pain and him already being in his forties now, the curve of his nose, the plump shape of his lips. “What is?” he whispers, much like Harry has done, not to wake the baby.

“Her” Harry smiles, pointing his head towards the crib “We were talking about how sad it was. That we couldn’t have children. And then you found her, abandoned and ready to die. But you saved her, and now she’s with us”

Zayn smiles at how Harry sees everything as _hope_ , lately. It’s not a bad thing, though. He loves how Harry is softer these days, more inclined to trust people, more prone to smile without any reason.

“Do you think her mum’s alive?” Zayn asks, while Harry pulls him closer.

Their chests are plastered against each other, and it’s warm, it’s summer, but Zayn would die rather than be even an inch farther from Harry, even after all those years.

Harry shrugs. “Maybe she is. I honestly don’t care. If she abandoned her like that, it means that either she didn’t want her, or she couldn’t take care of her. But we will, right?”

“We will” Zayn assured “We should give her a name, then?”

Harry hummed. “Well, she’s a sign of hope. And…”

“I won’t call our daughter Hope, Harry. _Every_ kid born in any post-apocalyptic movie is somehow called Hope”

Harry kisses him, hard and open mouthed, laughing in Zayn’s mouth, for a long time. Zayn doesn’t know if it’s because his comment was funny, or because it just slipped his mouth to call the little girl ‘our daughter’. Either way, he’s not complaining.

“Can I finish my sentence?” Harry asks after a moment, still giggling.

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Yeah?”

“I was saying. She’s a sign of hope. And before all this, the only one who really managed to give me hope, or _us_ … it was Maria”

Zayn sighs and smiles. Every time he thinks about Maria, his heart is torn between pain for her loss and a calm happiness at the thought that at least he was lucky to meet her.

“So you wanna call her Maria?” Zayn smiles on Harry’s lips.

Harry nods. “If you want to”

“I do” Zayn states.

Harry chuckles. “I believe you already told me these exact two words, exactly three years ago today”

Zayn laughs and rolls his eyes at the same time. “Shut up, Harry. And sleep”

Harry giggles. “As you command, Mr. Malik-Styles”

Zayn punches him in the shoulder, but laughs and buries his face in Harry’s chest nonetheless.

He remembers he has left the cans of tomatoes in the bike seat, too preoccupied with the baby to remember them.

He chuckles. He got a better present for Harry in the end. But he’ll give him the cans as well, tomorrow.

Because they do have time. Tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand it's done. I'm honestly pretty happy about this one, it's been fun and it broke my heart just the same. I hope you liked it as well!  
> I am gonna disappear for a couple weeks now, because thesis duty is calling me, but don't you worry, I still have more stories to write and to tell you :)  
> You'll find me on tumblr as wont-you-stay-till-the-am.tumblr.com, come hit me up if you wanna talk.  
> Till next time!


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